The boss of an academy trust that provides insurance cover for thousands of schools will now cover legal costs for staff who want to sue social media trolls.
This includes a template cease-and-desist letter to abusive parents.
Education Mutual, run by Nick Hurn, the chief executive of the Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust (BWCT), offers staff sickness cover to 3,500 member schools.
But this will be broadened from April to include defamation cover.
It comes after Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, this week said she was “concerned” about the rise in [parental] complaints and staff time they take up.
Legal letters
Hurn said: “We’ve seen a gradual escalation in people thinking they’ve got a right to say whatever they like about a member of staff who’s just doing their job.
“Staff shouldn’t be at the mercy of a social media troll. It’s not acceptable to call someone a paedophile online when it’s clearly not true.”
Education Mutual will start to cover all its member schools’ legal fees should they want to challenge a troll for libelling staff online.
After receiving a report, the mutual – an organisation owned and run by members – would consult its legal partner, DWF, which “will spring into action and produce a number of legal letters”. These will be sent to the social media platform and the user.
Hurn expects this to “nip 90 per cent of these kinds of activities in the bud, making them realise there are consequences for what they say”.
But in cases where this doesn’t resolve the issue, “there’s a decision to be made over whether we can take it further”.
“What we didn’t want to do was write an open cheque because anything like this can be incredibly difficult to navigate and expensive [if it goes further].
“I think it will get a big uptake initially because a lot of these things happen and aren’t addressed.”
Phillipson weighs in
Phillipson said she was “keen” to learn from the sector how the government should “respond” and “change” to help tackle abusive parents.
“I do recognise that post-pandemic in particular, some of those relationships remain quite fraught.”
The number of Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) misconduct referrals leapt by more than 60 per cent in 12 months, with the body receiving almost 1,700 in 2023-24.
The surge was “largely driven by an increase in the number of referrals made by members of the public”, it said.
Last year the Confederation of School Trusts called for the DfE to launch a “single front door” to “triage” parental complaints.
It argued this would ensure complaints were “investigated once and not multiple times” by various agencies, with the TRA only able to accept referrals from an employer or the police, not members of the public.
Schools Week revealed two years ago that Hurn introduced a “code of conduct” for parents at his trust.
This came after he instructed solicitors to write letters to parents demanding they take down posts that called one of his teachers a paedophile.
Unions also offer support in such issues.
The NEU said it offered support to members “if they have been defamed” as part of its “comprehensive legal service”.
‘High court action rare’
In the first instance, it wrote cease-and-desist letters to challenge those making the statement.
In “appropriate cases”, it pressed “website operators on why they facilitated” the incident. It was “rare” for it to be “necessary to take High Court” action.
Dr Patrick Roach, the NASUWT’s general secretary, said the union provided “effective support without the need for separate and potentially costly legal insurance”.
Meanwhile, the leaders’ union NAHT said its support for members “varies on a case-by-case basis”.
The Association of School and College Leaders confirmed its legal services did not extend to defamation, focusing instead on employment law.
In response to concerns that a large uptake in the service could increase Education Mutual’s membership fees, Hurn stressed it “wouldn’t have any detrimental effect”.
“Even if we had a huge uptake from the membership around this option, [the] funds we have allocated to cover these requests will be sufficient.”
