'Boy racer' head in job appeal

May 13 2008 Media Wales

THE High Court was today asked to rule on the future of a headteacher jailed for leaving a fellow motorist in a wheelchair while driving as a "boy racer".

Today Paul Davies, 51, former head of Cwmdare Primary School in Aberdare, launched a legal bid to get his job back on the grounds that the “one terrible episode” did not make him unfit to run his school.

Mr Davies was said by the judge who sentenced him to 15 months to have had the “mentality of a boy racer”.

Judge Stephen Hopkins described his driving in wet and windy conditions in the 2006 accident as “lunatic”.

He had “needlessly destroyed” the life of the other driver, Kevin Palmer, 49, for the foreseeable future.

Mr Davies returned to work as head of 200-pupil Cwmdare Primary School in January following his early release from prison last September.

But he was struck off the teaching register by the General Teaching Council for Wales (GTCW) for bringing the profession into disrepute through his dangerous driving.

As a result, he was dismissed from his head teacher’s post.

Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard evidence at his trial that he was travelling at up to 120mph in a Subaru Impreza covered with racing stickers before he lost control on a bend and hit Mr Palmer’s car head on.

Mr Davies accepted his speeding on the A456 was too high, but claimed he had not been driving at more than 60mph.

Today lawyers for Mr Davies argued the GTCW had “erred in law” in striking him off.

Dinah Rose QC, appearing for Mr Davies, said he was being disproportionately punished “for this one terrible episode” after 35 years of driving with only two minor speeding offences.

Ms Rose argued the school governors had no choice but to remove him after the GTCW disciplinary panel’s decision, although there was an appeal pending.

The governors, teachers and parents want him back, but the GTCW had failed to give proper consideration to their testimonials.

Ms Rose said the question for the court was: “Is it really necessary to remove an excellent head teacher from the school which he himself moulded and turned into a highly successful school?”

She accused the GTCW disciplinary panel of wrongly seeking to punish the head for what it judged to be “insufficient expression of remorse”.

Ms Rose told Mr Justice Blair, sitting at the High Court in London: “That is precisely what the legal authorities tell them they should not do.”

The evidence showed that at the time of the crash “he genuinely believed that he was not driving dangerously”, but he now accepted that he was and his speed was much too fast for the conditions.

Ms Rose said: “He accepts full responsibility for the terrible consequences of his actions.”

Currently he was subject to a two-year driving ban and would have to take an extended driving test in order to get his licence back.

Ms Rose said: “There is no question of a risk to children if Mr Davies is allowed to continue teaching.

“The disciplinary panel had before it powerful evidence from the community most directly affected that it had not lost confidence in his ability to serve.”

Paul Dean, appearing for the GTCW, argued that Mr Davies had suffered no injustice and the disciplinary panel had been justified in striking him off the teaching register.

He had failed to show insight "into the enormity of his offence", Mr Dean told the judge.

Some three months after the accident "he had no insight at all into the fact that the accident may have been his fault".

He had lost control as he rounded a bend and piled into Mr Palmer’s car at what the trial judge had described as "grossly excessive speed".

He had hit the car with such force that its engine had "shot out like a missile" and hit the car behind, said Mr Dean.

When Mr Davies was questioned by the disciplinary panel about what he had done to remedy the damage he had caused to the reputation of the teaching profession, "his answers didn’t show any awareness of the profession as a whole – he was simply talking about his own position."