A head teacher given a three-month suspended jail sentence for slapping a 10-year-old pupil is to appeal against her conviction, it was revealed yesterday.
Marjorie Evans (56), who was convicted of assault in Abergavenny Magistrates' Court in south Wales, was told that if she commits an offence in the next 12 months she will be jailed.
She declined to talk to waiting reporters. A spokesman for the National Union of Teachers said an appeal would be lodged next week.
Evans, of Usk, south Wales, was found guilty of slapping the 10-year-old boy, who had behavioural problems, after he became unruly when told he could not go swimming at a primary school in Gwent in September of last year.
She told the court she had restrained the boy, who had learning difficulties, by getting hold of both his wrists and crossing them over his body but she denied hitting him. A teacher at the school told the hearing Evans admitted to staff she had hit him.
The chairman of the board of governors at the school said he was "astounded" by the sentence.