By staff reporter

Last updated 16:07, Wednesday, 03 September 2008

A COPELAND infant school teacher has been cleared of nipping a pupil.

Hilary Claire Coote, 55, of Hornhill, Millom, had denied assaulting the child at Millom Infants School last February.

Mrs Coote, a teacher for 34 years, was alleged to have nipped the child on his back, but after a trial Whitehaven magistrates cleared her of the charge.

Stuart Pattinson, prosecuting, said the defendant had been “exercising her own form of punishment’’ when she allegedly assaulted the child.

The child’s evidence was heard through a DVD of the police interview, where he alleged Mrs Coote had “nipped me for no reason”.

Mrs Coote’s solicitor, Neil Pilling, did not subsequently cross-examine the child, who was to have appeared by video-link.

In court, Sheila Watson, a learning support assistant, said she had heard Mrs Coote shouting at the child and had seen him “screw up’’ his face as if in pain. However, she denied seeing Mrs Coote assault the pupil.

Mrs Coote, a teacher at Millom Infants School for over 20 years and who has been suspended from her teaching job since February, said she was “flabbergasted’’ by the allegations.

She admitted shouting at the child, who she claimed had hit another child on the head, and had told him she was “disappointed’’ by his behaviour. The child would pull faces when he had been told off, Mrs Coote explained.

Whitehaven magistrates, in clearing Mrs Coote, said there was no evidence of an assault on the child’s body.