MERITED HIS THRASHING

NZ Truth, Issue 1253, 5 December 1929, Page 9

MERITED HIS THRASHING

Schoolboy's Punishment Was Not Excessive, Said ■ S.M.

HEADMASTER'S ACTION UPHELD

' (From "N. 3. Truth >s ' ' Special Wellington Representative) . Finding that it was necessary that discipline m the school should be maintained, Mr. T. B. McNeil, S.M., exonerated John Campbell Burns, headmaster of Petone West School, of the charge of excessively thrashing Roy Vivian Furniss, a pupil, and dismissed a claim for, £25 damages brought by the lad's father. The magistrate found that the headmaster did not administer the punishment from anger or malice, and that the flogging was justified and not excessive.

WHEN Mr. McNeil heard legal argument on the resumption of the proceedings last week Mr. Egley stated that while three independent witnesses — Senior-sergeant McKelvey, Dr. Bakewell and Miss Kirk, of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children, all testified that there were ten raised weals on the boy's forearms, Mr. Burns declared that at no time had he touched the lad's forearms with the cane. • . Burns had Btated that he remained cool, calm and collected, that he had not lost his temper and the only place he had struck Furniss with the cane was across the buttocks. Mr. Egley submitted that m the light of this evidence the inference to be drawn from it was that Burns had lost his temper and must have been m such a state of rage that he did not know that 'he struck Furniss across the forearms. So far as the incident with Miss Allan was concerned he submitted that Furniss had, not been allowed - to make an explanation as to what had happened between the other boy, Thompson, and himself, and it. was because he was smarting under a .sense of injustice that he had refused to hold out his hand. The submis&ion put forward by Mr. W. P. Rollings (for Burns) was that more weight should be given io the headmaster's version of what Had occurred than that of the boy. If there was any reasonable doubt Burns should be given tfle benefit of it. There was no evidence, he said, as. to how the marks got on the boy's arms. On placing the obvious mixture of truth and falsehoods made by Furniss alongside the headmaster's story the court would come to the following conclusions: That the boy's conduct was on the whole bad; that his conduct was of the worst nature headmasters had to deal with — rebellion against discipline; that the immediate cause of the punishment was an act of rebellion against discipline, accompanied by such language as no headmaster or^ anyone, else m authority could tolerate for a moment; that the punishment deliberately inflicted by Burns was reasonable and not more than commensurate with the offence, serious as it was; and that the bruises and marks on the boy were caused either by his own struggles or as a result of him slipping down m the corridor. In his finding Mr. McNeil came to the. conclusion that Burns had thrashed the boy from the necessity of chastising a rebellious pupil. He thought the. boy was wrong m his attitude.in refusing to be punished by his teacher, Miss ' Allan. ;; This teacher had stated that Furniss

was very impertinent m the presence of other pupils and breaking, from her grasp had run from the room. She had considered that he was insolent and other members of the .. staff had given evidence, m support of this. "In considering," said Mr. McNeil, "whether the thrashing given to Furniss was m the circumstances unduly severe, an important element is, I think, the fact that the pupil stubbornly and actively resisted the punishment his master proposed to administer. "It is necessary that discipline m the school should be maintained." In the magistrate's opinion Furniss received the marks on his hands and arms when attempting to ward off the strokes of the cane as Burns attempted to strike him across the buttocks. Judgment with costs was entered for Burns.