Monmouthshire headteacher Marjorie Evans
has received a private letter of support from
the Prince of Wales suggesting they meet to
discuss her case.
Mrs Evans was cleared by the High Court in
September of slapping a 10-year-old pupil.
At the time, she announced that she wanted
to get back to work at St Mary's School in
Caldicot as soon as possible. But 12-weeks on,
she has hardly any further forward.
On Monday night,
governors at the school
met to discuss her case
and said they had come
to a "firm decision"
about her future.
But, they refused to
reveal exactly what
that decision was until
members of the staff
had been informed.
Although the
headteacher was
cleared on appeal, they
needed to decide whether or not she had
broken school proceedures and whether or not
she should face an internal disciplinary inquiry.
Mrs Evans says support she has received from
members of the public has kept her going
throughout her ordeal. But she was upset
details of a private letter she received from
Prince Charles were leaked to the media.
"It's a very personal and private letter and was
not supposed to be in the public domain," she
said.
"I'm very upset that it
has because it looks as
though it's me who has
leaked it and I don't
know where it has
come from."
The prince's private
secretary Stephen
Lamport wrote to Mrs
Evans expressing his
"heartfelt sympathy".
He wrote "The Prince
of Wales has asked me
to write to you on a very personal basis to say
how much he has felt for you over the very
difficult circumstances you have faced in
recent months.
"His Royal Highness would would very much
welcome the opportunity, at some point, to
meet you to talk about your experience."
NUT Wales secretary Gethin Lewis said the
union had been in touch with St James's
Palace to sort out arrangements.
~*~
Hirohito 'guilty' over sex slaves(BBC News)
A mock international war crimes tribunal in
Tokyo has found the late Emperor Hirohito
guilty for his army's wartime policy of forcing
foreign women to work as sex slaves.
The tribunal concluded the emperor knew, or
should have known, about the establishment of
military brothels where some 200,000 women
were forced into prostitution.
During the five-day
hearing scores of former
comfort women gave
evidence of their
suffering during the
1930s and 1940s.
The trial was set up by
women's groups from
eight countries and had
no official standing. But the organisers hope to
put pressure on Japan to redress the wrong.
The symbolic ruling comes just days after
Japanese courts rejected lawsuits brought by
Korean and Filipino comfort women who were
demanding compensation and apologies.
Determined to fight
More than 450 participants, including victims,
lawyers, judges and scholars from around the
world attended the tribunal.
In its condemnation of
Hirohito, the mock
tribunal concluded:
"Superiors can be
responsible for the acts
of their subordinates if
they'd known or should
have known that these
acts had been
committed."
The four judges -
headed by the former
president of the UN's
Yugoslavia war crimes
tribunal, Gabrielle McDonald -also found that
individual victims have a right to claim
compensation from Japan.
"The state must act with due diligence to
address and repair the harm," said Christine
Chinkin, one of the judges.
Although many women are now in their 70s -
while others have died - they are still
determined to fight for an official Japanese
apology and compensation for their suffering.
Women abducted
An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 women
across Asia, predominantly Korean and
Chinese, are believed to have been forced to
work as sex slaves in Japanese military
brothels.
Many were abducted,
and girls as young as 10
were sent to the
brothels, where they
were forced to have
sex with as many as 30
soldiers a day.
No defence was
provided for Emperor Hirohito and the accused
military leaders and wartime cabinet ministers.
Organisers say they invited the Japanese
government to take part in the tribunal, but it
declined to do so.