Aberdare: Assault-accused school staff not autism trained - court

Teachers who allegedly assaulted severely autistic children had no training in dealing with their noise sensitivity needs, a court has heard.

Mandy Hodges, 50, and Laura Murphy, 33, deny seven counts of assault by beating and cruelty to a child under 16.

The court heard how children were left "in pain" after having their ear defenders "ripped" from their heads.

The defendants say training for their jobs at Park Lane special school in Aberdare took "months and months".

Other alleged incidents at the school, in Rhondda Cynon Taf, included children being "dragged" across the playground and one boy being roughly removed from a tricycle by the women.

In a police interview, teacher Ms Murphy said children's ear defenders could be taken off "for many reasons" and rejected the suggestion taking them off could cause a child stress.

Ms Murphy, who had been working at the school for eight years at the time of the alleged offences, said she had been asked to take on the class of six severely autistic children just seven weeks beforehand.

"There was no support, they were struggling to get a teacher, the children were quite challenging," she said, telling detectives it was "months and months before I had any training".

The teacher said she did not know why she had removed the ear defenders of a child with sensory processing disorder, an incident which had been captured on CCTV in October 2020.

But she would often take them off children when they became anxious or violent to "take their mind off" whatever was upsetting them.

"No stress or harm was caused," she said.

Teaching assistant Mandy Hodges, 50, told officers she had worked at the school for five-and-a-half years but she too had "no proper autism training".

She said she had always worked with older children before coming to Ms Murphy's class of six children aged eight, nine and 10 in September 2020.

"I would never be cruel, I would never do anything to hurt them," she told police during an interview at Merthyr Tydfil police station.

Ms Hodges was captured on school CCTV taking the ear defenders from a nine-year-old boy with autism who had an acute sensitivity to noise.

The boy's father previously told the court his son could not leave home without his defenders and that he "cannot function without them".

But Ms Hodges told the court it was a way of calming him down when he became angry because there was a risk he could hurt himself and others.

Asked by detectives if this was an appropriate technique, she replied: "It is what I have been told to do, I've seen everybody doing it."

She told officers she did not know why taking the ear defenders away could help calm children with noise sensitivity issues, but that "it works, it does".

She said the child in question would stop what he was doing and she would massage his fingers to help him calm down.

"He smiles when you take the ear defenders off," said Ms Hodges.

The parents of some of the children involved shook their heads and became visibly upset as they listened to the defendants police interviews being read out in court.

The trial continues.