British science teacher Peter Harvey's attack on a teenage student with a dumbbell - while shouting 'die, die, die' - made headlines worldwide last month.
But, if the news was shocking, it also drew back the curtain on frontline teaching conditions in British schools.
A little more than 20 years ago, an inquiry by the British government found that about 2 per cent of teachers had been on the receiving end of violence from students. Fast forward to 2008, and police in Britain were called on to deal with violent crimes in schools more than 7,300 times. Last year, Britain's Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) found in a survey that 25 per cent of teachers had been physically assaulted by students.
One primary school teacher told the compilers of the survey: 'A six-year-old completely trashed the staff room, put a knife through a computer screen, attacked staff and we had to call the police. Another six-year-old attacked staff and pupils with the teacher's scissors.'
With nearly 60 per cent of teachers responding that student behaviour had become worse over the past five years, 50-year-old science teacher Harvey walked free from a Nottingham court. The judge acknowledged that the highly experienced teacher had broken down due to stress and depression amid mounting disobedience by his students.
Despite the fact that the 14-year-old victim of Harvey's attack - one of a group of students who had been taunting the teacher and secretly videotaping his reactions - suffered a fractured skull and bleeding in the brain, the jury took just two hours to clear the teacher.
'The British judicial system demonstrated both wisdom and mercy,' the Daily Telegraph wrote. The newspaper said colleagues and former pupils had described Harvey as 'an inspiring teacher, who cared deeply for his pupils', and that a series of events - including being shoved by a pupil and pushed into a bush by another - had driven him into depression.