The headteacher of a school for excluded pupils could lose her job after getting into a drunken late-night fight with a colleague at a railway station.
Katrina Mann, principal of a teaching centre in Dagenham for students expelled from other schools, was arrested after brawling with fellow teacher Darren McCarthy and hurling abuse at police.
Mann, 48, had been drinking with McCarthy for several hours at a pub near Barking station and the pair were seen kissing and embracing, Havering magistrates heard today.
When police were called to the scene to deal with an unrelated incident they started shouting at each other and McCarthy shouted at officers: “Why have you f***ing stopped me, why are you in our f***ing business?”
Mann was then heard to tell her colleague: “Shut the f**k up, don’t say anything, you are coming home with me”, before revealing her role at the Barking and Dagenham Tuition Centre and saying: “You don’t know what it is like dealing with behaviour like this.”
The pair were today given a conditional discharge after admitting using threatening and abusive words and behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or disorder.
They were originally charged with being drunk and disorderly in a public place and a more serious offence of using threatening words and behaviour to put a person in fear of violence, but were offered a new charge on the day of trial.
Magistrate Roy Baxendall told the pair they “completely lost it and completely showed yourselves up” but decided not to punish them after being told they were in danger of losing their jobs. They were both suspended from work pending the outcome of the court case.
