Children's school trip ordeal

It started out as an ordinary, everyday school trip. Earlier this summer, about 20 pupils aged 10 and 11 from Lyon's Hall primary school in Braintree, Essex, paid £300 each to visit Anglesea in North Wales, where they'd stay in a hotel and tour the local sights.

Accompanied by a handful of teachers - including headmistress Hilary Mynott and her popular deputy Chris Webb, whom Mrs Mynott had brought with her from her last school, a village primary - the children were enormously excited by the prospect of a few days away from home, while their parents looked forward to a peaceful break from high-spirited offspring.

Yet this was a trip that would end in serious and potentially ruinous accusations of unprofessional conduct and cruelty against Mrs Mynott and Mr Webb.

Away from their normal school environment, and apparently struggling to cope with unruly behaviour, both teachers allegedly resorted to highly unorthodox techniques to restrain one of the children in their care, 10-year-old Ryan Scott.

The boy claims he was pinned down and his mouth forcibly shut with surgical tape, taken from the trip's first aid box, to stop him swearing.

Since the children's return, Mrs Mynott and Mr Webb have both been suspended from duty, pending an investigation by Essex County Council. Essex police are standing by to launch their own inquiries.

The school's reputation and Mrs Mynott's career now hang in the balance.

Though no one could possibly predict or condone the use of physical force and surgical tape as a means of preventing foul language, in some senses this latest school trip "scandal" - if proved - was waiting to happen; the result of months of building pressure at Lyon's Hall.

In common with many primary schools in urban districts, both inside and just outside London, in recent years the newly built Lyon's Hall has been forced to absorb students from a number of closed or failing schools - including Ryan Scott's old primary, Chapel Hill.

With these students comes the attendant problems in the classrooms. The school caters for "a significant proportion of children who have been excluded from other schools", according to its last Ofsted report, including "a significant minority of pupils with multiple social difficulties".

One in seven children at Lyon's Hall has reportedly been placed on the Special Educational Needs Register. Ryan Scott's own behaviour had begun to deteriorate following the break-up of his parents' marriage in February, while the school as a whole is overburdened with children from difficult or under-privileged backgrounds.

Insiders claim that Mrs Mynott, who recently underwent treatment for cancer, had performed satisfactorily when she took over Lyon's Hall but had struggled to manage her stress levels and temper in the face of these problems - developing what some parents describe as an "abrupt" attitude.

Last year a group of four families, including two policemen and a financial adviser, approached their local MP, Alan Hurst, with a series of complaints about Mrs Mynott's management style. Since then, approximately 25 children have been withdrawn by their parents.

The difficulties encountered by both pupils and staff at this large and packed school in the middle of a growing council estate - described as "bursting at the seams" by a council source - are symptomatic generally of a patchy educational system still emerging from years of crisis. Yet within that context Lyon's Hall was coping with its own highly specific troubles, too.

However, nothing prepared Ryan Scott's mother Sharon, who works at Tesco, for the tale he told upon his return from the school trip. The expedition did not start well by all accounts - though there was nothing to suggest the trauma of what was later said to have happened.

In the coach outside the school gates, the boys and girls were "all a bit over the top and playing up a bit" - according to a parent. Later, one boy who persisted in making V-signs had his fingers reportedly taped together, and this incident is currently under investigation as well.

Three days into the trip, however, that initial childish rowdiness began to turn into sheer, hardened defiance.

While visiting the moated Beaumaris castle at Anglesea, a group of Lyon's Hall boys - including Ryan Scott - began to swear at each other, shoving and pushing. It is claimed Mrs Mynott, 47, stepped in to prevent an embarrassing public scene and appeared to single out Ryan.

Head teacher and pupil had a chequered history: just two weeks before, Mrs Mynott had called Sharon Scott to the school to take Ryan home following an argument with other pupils. During a fraught discussion on that occasion Ryan had called Mrs Mynott "an old bitch". His shocked mother had clipped him round the ear and swiftly marched him home.

At Beaumaris Castle, Ryan's behaviour - his swearing and his aggression - was without doubt unacceptable, even given his parents' recent break-up.

A quiet, undisruptive child before his father quit the family home to live with another woman, Ryan had recently become prone to temper tantrums and bouts of anger - often responding badly to taunts from fellow pupils on a Monday at school after returning from a weekend at his dad's new home.

But he wasn't a serial offender and had a relatively unblemished record prior to this past summer term. Though he'd been involved in a few fights at school, none was judged more serious than normal boyish scraps. One previous school trip to York, and a subsequent visit to stately home Kentwell Hall in Suffolk, passed without incident.

Yet reports suggest that Ryan Scott continued to swear and become increasingly angry on the trip to Anglesea, ignoring reprimands from Mrs Mynott and, in effect, defying the authority of his teachers. As the headmistress moved to intervene, Ryan allegedly lashed out and called her "a f****** whore".

What happened next may well be the subject of later court proceedings. Helped to an extent by her 29-year-old deputy head teacher, Chris Webb - a favourite among the children and Ryan's class teacher - Mrs Mynott allegedly pinned a hysterical Ryan to the ground, opened the emergency first aid box and taped his mouth shut with surgical tape.

The tape was left on the boy's mouth for no more than a few minutes but shocked the group sufficiently to cast a shadow over the rest of the trip.

UPON their retur n, Sharon Scott, aware that her son had been disruptive in recent months, casually inquired whether Ryan had behaved himself on the trip, to be told by Mr Webb that "he was a bit naughty". Mr Webb is alleged to have commented lightly: "We had a bit of a problem early on and we taped his mouth shut."

Mrs Scott, who has three other sons, went home and discussed this shocking news with Ryan. Understandably, she then wrote a letter of complaint to school governor Andrew Thorndyke. Within days, Mrs Mynott and Mr Webb had been suspended.

The pressures of school life at Lyon's Hall, and the enormous stress of coping with cancer, perhaps caused Mrs Mynott to simply flip in the face of Ryan's deeply provocative behaviour.

Parents and teachers both praise her industrious attitude to work, noting the long hours she spends at school and the presence of her car in the school car park long after the others have gone.

Despite her reportedly difficult management style, no one accuses Mrs Mynott of anything but conscientious commitment to her pupils. Indeed, Lyon's Hall is something of a Mynott family concern, for Mrs Mynott's husband is the school's caretaker, swimming coach and head cleaner.

The taping of a child's mouth is an undeniably inappropriate and possibly extremely dangerous response to misbehaviour. "If they taped his mouth shut, it is totally wrong," says a source at the local council who wishes to remain anonymous.

"The tragedy is that a teacher who has done so many good things is caught up in this, and that such a promising young teacher as Chris Webb should be dragged into it as well."

Though both Mrs Mynott and Mr Webb declined to comment, teachers' unions have long highlighted the problems of violence and abuse faced by teachers in the classroom - and point out the growth of malicious allegations made against them. Last year 125 members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers sought the union's help in cases involving physical violence, compared to 34 members four years before.

Some teachers view violence and the threat of it as an occupational hazard, says the association.

The National Union of Teachers, meanwhile, reports a sudden increase in the number of false accusations made against teachers: latest figures show that six per cent of allegations of physical or sexual abuse actually lead to prosecutions and just two per cent end in conviction.

Yet it's difficult to see how Mrs Mynott and Mr Webb can possibly continue to teach if the allegations against them are proved. What began as an innocent trip from urban, modern Essex to the beautiful, historic island of Anglesea may result in the blackening of a school's name and the termination of two careers.

A child's distress at his parents' break-up; a teacher's battle with cancer; the stress of a difficult school in the throes of rapid expansion; and, allegedly, a moment of blind stupidity.

Combined they turn an unfortunate incident into a disaster.