Morris was wrong to step in, says mother of death threat schoolboy

The mother of a boy expelled for making death threats against a teacher reacted angrily yesterday to the intervention of a cabinet minister, which saw her successful appeal for her son's reinstatement overturned.

Sharon Aldred's outburst came as colleagues of the aggrieved teacher, Steve Taverner, voted not to have the boys back in their classes at Glyn Technology School in Epsom, Surrey.

Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, intervened to have Mrs Aldred's son and another 15-year-old removed from the school after they were allowed to return by an independent appeals panel.

Mrs Aldred stressed yesterday that the appeal panel's decision was legally binding.

She did not deny her son had made the calls but said he had "served his time" and insisted he would remain a pupil at Glyn School. "I haven't gone through five months of hell with my family to now accept that my son will go to a referral unit," she said.

The community group that represented the boys said it was considering seeking a judicial review of Ms Morris's "inappropriate" intervention, saying she had "clearly exceeded her powers".

Gerry German, the director of the Communities Empowerment Network, a Lottery-funded organisation,said it was considering applying to the High Court next week.

He said the boys had been "punished enough" and it was time for them to be allowed to return to the school to finish their GCSE courses.

The ruling can be challenged by judicial review in the High Court, or parents can make a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman.

In any case, Ms Morris'sactions backfired because she had no legal power to overturn the ruling of the appeals panel.

Surrey County Council said officials had met both sets of parents but had been unable to agree where the boys should be placed. It has been agreed they will not return to Glyn School next week.

Damian Green, the Conservative education spokesman, described Ms Morris's intervention as "yet another blunder" by the Secretary of State and called for the abolition of appeals panels.

He said: "Estelle Morris had made a difficult situation worse. Quiet diplomacy might have helped resolve this situation; instead she chose to talk tough without the power to back up her words."

The teacher at the centre of the affair, Steve Taverner, 54, who is off work suffering from stress, is considering legal action against the two boys.

The 15-year-olds were expelled for leaving 44 abusive messages on Mr Taverner's answering machine after he disciplined them for throwing stones at windows.

One message said: "You are going to die soon. You are going to get stabbed in the back of the head." Another said: "You have five days to live."

Mr Taverner said he had been off sick with stress for the past two weeks.

"My doctor was horrified by the state I was in," he said. "I had been waking up in the middle of the night and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

"I had headaches and the worst thing was that I was even retching sometimes."

He was backed by teachers in his union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), at Glyn School, who voted yesterday by 15-1 to refuse to teach or supervise the boys if they were allowed to return.

ATL confirmed that Mr Taverner was in discussions with its lawyers on possible legal action against the boys. A spokeswoman said: "We are considering all Mr Taverner's legal options."

The other two teaching unions with teachers at the school, the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, are also balloting their members.

The two boys began making death threats in April, and were expelled after police who investigated the calls handed their names to the school.

Their parents appealed against the decision to an independent appeals panel, which ruled last month that the boys must be allowed to return. But when the boys returned to school this week all 70 teachers refused to teach them, forcing them to be taught separately by a supply teacher.

Ms Morris was so angry at the boys' reinstatement that she personally intervened to try to have the teenagers removed from the school.

Her officials pressured Surrey local education authority to meet the boys' parents yesterday to offer them places elsewhere.