School let me down says teacher raped by boy in classroom

The woman, who cannot be named, will receive "generous" damages from Westminster City School for boys after the assault left her unable to return to teaching.

She had been at the school for less than a week when she was attacked as she sat alone at the end of the day.

"Being raped and losing my job was like being bereaved," she said. "I lost a thing I loved doing. It was devastating. I lost myself."

Her attacker, Dwayne Best, was only 15 at the time but had repeatedly threatened to kill her as she tried to fight him off. She bit him during the assault in September 2004 and had the presence of mind to retain crucial DNA evidence that eventually led to his successful prosecution. Best was given a life sentence at the Old Bailey in July 2005.

Miss X, as she is known, had hoped to resume her career as a French teacher but as well as serious physical injuries, she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, flashbacks and nightmares and she is not able to work in schools again.

She is still furious that a boy with a violent record was allowed to remain at the school to commit the rape.

There was a previous, less serious sex attack on a cleaner and Best had the "most appalling" history of aggression inside and outside school which should have been enough to exclude him, she said.

Miss X decided to sue the school's governing body over her ordeal and has now reached a confidential settlement in the damages action.

"They really failed. They let me down and I hold them responsible for putting me in the way of a rapist," she said.

"Nobody warned me. On a basic level that's what it comes down to: if they had warned me, I wouldn't have been there in the classroom.

"I take my own safety very seriously and I always have. I don't put myself in those kind of positions."

She said that Best's school records showed a "degenerative" pattern of behaviour that the school should have picked up on.

"It was really bad management. If you have pupils who are in need of behavioural management then you have in place policies for teachers to use."

The teacher said she hoped that her case would make schools go back and look again at their policies and risk assessments to make sure they are doing what they can to keep their staff safe.

She said she was now looking forward to the future, with hopes of setting up her own business and starting a family.

At the High Court yesterday, Mr Justice Foskett said the ordeal she went through was "truly horrifying." The judge said it was to her credit that she wanted to use material from the case to try to prevent others going through what she went through.

A spokesman for Westminster City School said: "It was a highly unusual case which could not have been foreseen by the school. Neither was this incident the fault of the school. Both parties have now resolved this matter."