Sudhana Singh

I have posted before on the case of this former head teacher, see here. Now the BBC has this:

 A former head teacher who says she was the victim of "racist bullying" has won a Court of Appeal ruling she hopes could help her bid for compensation.

Sudhana Singh is claiming constructive dismissal over her treatment at Reading Borough Council-maintained Moorlands Primary in Tilehurst.

She says the council "forced" school business manager Sue Heath to provide a statement "riddled with lies".

Employment and appeal tribunals had ruled the claim should not be allowed.

Now three appeal judges have allowed Mrs Singh, 45, to appeal.
'Autocratic style'
Lord Justice Lewison said both tribunals had been wrong and there was "no immunity behind which the council can shelter".

The judge said Ms Singh ran into "serious difficulties" in her first year as head teacher in her relationships with parents, staff and governors.

He said she was accusing governors of endorsing a campaign of "discrimination, bullying, harassment and victimisation" against her as an Asian head teacher.

She was also accusing the council of "deliberately and unlawfully" endorsing the campaign to remove her from her post.

He added: "The council denies these allegations. It says that the serious breakdown in relationships was due to Ms Singh's autocratic style of leadership and her poor communication skills."

She may win this appeal. I hope she does. I have never met her, nor do I know the school, nor do I have any view as to her competence as a head teacher, but it seems quite clear that she has been hounded out following a non-specific campaign by a group of parents. If someone is not doing their job well enough, a noisy media campaign is not the way to deal with it. It is however Reading Labour's way, and their fingerprints are all over this. The chair of governors at the key time was a man whose day job is as the regional director of the Labour Party, South-East Region, one Malcolm Powers. Why is Labour-controlled Reading Borough Council even commenting at this moment? Given that an appeal is pending they should not be doing so. All their counsel had to say was that if Ms Singh was given leave to appeal this would "open the floodgates" to other cases. Er, only if there are crowds of teachers and others Reading Labour is trying to hound out of their jobs for being people of colour in order to appease a bunch of racists in a marginal ward, would any floodgates open. This is the same bunch who have no shame at using a racist dog-whistle to get their candidate elected against an Asian candidate, see below, "she's one of us"