Teacher sues for HK$3m after assault in class
A teacher is claiming more than HK$3 million from a Tai Wai school run by the Po Leung Kuk for psychiatric symptoms she allegedly suffered after she was assaulted by a student in class.
Vanessa Sin Yuk-lin, 47, has launched her claim against Po Leung Kuk C. W. Chu College and the charitable organisation in the Court of First Instance before Mr Justice Barnabas Fung Wah.
After she was allegedly verbally abused on March 4, 2003, she left and sought medical treatment. She has been on sick leave since then.
Ms Sin, a Chinese-language teacher, told the court yesterday that her experience of teaching at the school included being assaulted by a Form Three student, verbal abuse and handling a fight.
She told the court she was assaulted on March 3, 2003, a day before she decided to seek medical treatment.
Ms Sin said the class was noisy and 'messy' when she walked in that morning and she asked the students to go back to their seats.
One of the students complained to her that his seat was occupied by another student, surnamed Lee, who was sleeping on his desk, Ms Sin said.
She said she patted the student gently to wake him up. Lee stood up and the desk toppled over and hurt her leg. She asked Lee to see her after the lesson, then went back to the front of the class. Lee went back to his own desk but his classmates teased him, she said.
'Lee dashed out from his seat to the teacher's desk and grabbed a plastic chalk container. He held the container up high and hit it at my chest. He then held it up high again, and the other classmates tried to persuade him to go back to his own seat, so he eventually threw it on to the floor,' Ms Sin said, adding that she was very scared at the time.
Ms Sin said she had asked the four class monitors to find the disciplinary teacher, Mr Tang, for help, but her request was turned down. She also said she heard one of the students shouting: 'No one is allowed to go out!'
'I did not know what to do. I did not know if I could leave the classroom. I was very scared,' she told the court. She said she decided to continue teaching, but was interrupted again when two students started to fight 20 minutes later.
That time she managed to get a student to find Mr Tang, she said, adding that she left the classroom after Mr Tang took control.
Ms Sin, who joined the school in 1996, alleged that she was verbally abused by students the next day.
Ms Sin's lawyers told the court that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and received psychiatric treatment.
Her lawyers said her employer was liable for negligently failing to take precautions to protect teachers.
She will continue to testify today.
