£400, 000 for head forced out in racism row

A HEADTEACHER won £407,781 damages yesterday over allegations of racism and Islamophobia which forced her out of the job she loved.

Erica Connor was at the High Court yesterday Erica Connor was at the High Court yesterday

Erica Connor, now 57, won the compensation for the psychiatric injury she suffered while employed at the school.

A High Court judge said education officers had been more concerned about complaints to the Commission for Racial Equality than the health of their headteacher.

The divorced mother-of-one was employed at the New Monument Primary School in Woking, Surrey, which has mainly Muslim pupils.

She was awarded damages against Surrey County Council, which had contested the case, including sums for her pain and suffering and loss of income and pension.

Her case was that the authority failed to give her the support she needed in relation to the conduct of two members of the school’s governing body, Muslims Paul Martin and Mumtaz Saleem.

In the past five years she had lost the “considerable spark” that had characterised her life, her self-confidence and self-respect.

Miss Connor, from Esher, Surrey, who joined the school as deputy head in September 1994 and was promoted to head in 1998, suffered from the stress which led to her early retirement on the grounds of ill health in December 2006.

Deputy Judge John Leighton Williams QC ruled that the former employers of Ms Connor had been in breach of their duty of care to her. He said she was to be compensated for a severe depressive episode associated with symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder.

In the past five years she had lost the “considerable spark” that had characterised her life, her self-confidence and self-respect.

The judge said: “She remains depressed some two-and-a -half years after she was certified as unfit to work. She has suffered greatly”. He considered that she would not return to teaching, but was doing voluntary unpaid work.

The judge said that until 2003 the school had done “very well” under her leadership and the governing body had operated successfully and “more importantly” there were positive links with the local community, including the Muslim community.

It was clear that from late 2003 down to the summer of 2005 the governing body was “dysfunctional” because of the conduct “in particular” of Mr Martin and Mr Saleem.

He said: “I am satisfied they sought to monopolise governing body meetings with a view to imposing their agenda.”

Ms Connor, who stopped working at the school in September 2005 because of the stress and now lives in Wales, said: “The last five years have been a long haul, at great cost to myself and my family, so I am thrilled that justice has prevailed.”

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