Hundreds likely at Peach funeral

Press, 13 June 1979, Page 21

Hundreds likely at Peach funeral

NZPA London London teachers will be given time off to attend the funeral of the New Zealander, Biair Peach, today without losing pay. The Labour-controlled Inner London Education! Authority has given each school head the right to send one teacher from each school i to the funeral without loss! of pay. The I.L.E.A. controls more* than 1000 schools, mainly! primary, in the Greater Lon-: don area, including 155 special schools of the t"oe' at which Mr Peach taught' ip East London. But the move, set out in' a circular issued to schools

iby the I.L.E.A.’s education officer (Mr Peter Newsam), : has been strongly criticised >by the minoritv Conservatives group on the authority. Professor David Smith, leader of the Conservatives group, has called the circu- ■ lar “quite outrageous” and (has given notice of his ini'tention to table an emergI ency question at yesterday’s lischeduied meeting of the education committee. I The circular says. “Be(cause the authority feels it (appropriate on this particu•ilar occasion for schools staff i;to be associated with the ‘ funeral, leave with pay will (be granted to one teacher at [each school in order that he/ (she can attend to represent i the school.”

The move to allow, teachers time off was also s’ ply criticised by a teacher in the London suburb of Bromley, Ms Helen Gardener, who is ~lsu a Conservative councillor in Greenwich. “This is a blatant political move clearly designed to turn the funeral into a rally,” she said. “It is quite shocking to place heads in the position of deciding which! teacher should leave his or her pupils to go to this funeral.” Many teachers had been irritated to receive permission to attend the funeral when it was “normally very difficult to get paid leave to go to a funeral.” Such permission was usually granted only

'.for the funerals of close rei ilatives. j i The “Daily Telegraph” ] ■ reported that the I.L.E.A. ( i circular was “unprecedented” ( ■ and said that the National ■ ■ Union of School Students, j which involves mainly senior [ secondary-school pupils, had ( > called on members to attend , ’ the funeral. , Meanwhile a British law- > yers’ group has called for a 1 i[public inquiry into the tac- ■ tics used by the police Spe- 1 ; cial Patrol Group. 1 The Legal Action Group - • said that the way in which ’ i demonstrators had been ’ 1 handled at the Southall anti- j ' National Front demonstra- . . tion had made disorder in- < r evitable. j 1

A leading article in the group's journal, “L.A.G. Bulletin,” said that such an inquiry should also examine the crowd-control techniques adopted by the Special Pat-i rol Group. Reports of charges with drawn batons and riot shields; were “developments which: have taken place without any] public or open debate.” I “An internal police inquiry is not the way to investigate these issues,” said the journal. “Nor will they be dealt with by an inquest which will be concerned only with the cause of Biair Peach’s death, or a subsequent trial, which will be: concerned only with the cri-| Iminal liabiilty of the: accused.” A L.A.G. spokesman. Mr Ollie Hanson, told the London radio station L.B.C. that the Special Patrol Group had been set up without adequate public discussion of its role. “Reports suggest that intimidatory tactics were used which we are not used to in this country,” he said. This suggested that the police believed this was the only way in which British crowds could now be controlled. If that was the case, there should be full public discussion of the police conclusion.