Webster & Ors v Ridgeway Foundation School

A school owes its pupils a duty to take reasonable care to keep them reasonably safe during school hours and for a reasonable period afterwards while they remain on the premises. The duty does not require compliance with every school policy, nor does adopting a policy itself create an assumption of responsibility. Liability for omissions requires proof of breach, causation and reasonably foreseeable loss. A school may owe a duty to protect against attacks by outsiders, but the risk must be assessed realistically and without hindsight. The European Convention on Human Rights requires knowledge, actual or constructive, of a real and immediate risk of treatment reaching the Article 3 threshold. A brutal criminal attack by an outsider was not shown to have been foreseeable, causally linked to any breach, or preventable by the measures proposed.

The claim arose from a criminal attack on Henry Webster, a pupil at The Ridgeway Foundation School. After the end of the school day, Henry was attacked on the school premises by pupils and adults, one of whom struck him repeatedly with a hammer, causing severe brain injury. His brother, mother and stepfather claimed for psychiatric injury after witnessing the immediate aftermath.

The claim was primarily in negligence, with an alternative claim under Article 3 of the Convention and Human Rights Act 1998. The claimants alleged inadequate site security, supervision, discipline, race-equality measures and response to events on the day. A preliminary issue was tried as to liability, including duty, breach, foreseeability, causation and the school’s status as a public authority.

1. Duty of care. The school owed Henry a duty to take reasonable care to keep him reasonably safe during school hours and for a reasonable period afterwards while he remained on the premises. The relationship between school and pupil justified a duty extending, to some extent, to protection against attacks by outsiders. The duty was not a duty to guarantee safety.
2. Policies and statutory obligations. The school’s policies assisted in assessing the common-law duty but did not create contractual obligations or an independent duty to comply with every policy. The statutory duties relied upon did not give rise to a civil action. An assumption of responsibility could not be founded merely on an attempt to perform a statutory duty.
3. Security and supervision. The failure to construct a perimeter fence was within the range of reasonable responses, having regard to the perceived risks, cost, funding, planning and other obstacles. The allocation of staff at the end of the day was also a reasonable judgment. Even if a teacher should have been stationed at the tennis courts, the claimants had not proved that the attack would have been avoided, since another location could have been used and the assault was exceptionally swift.
4. Discipline and race equality. The school was not negligent in its general disciplinary approach, mobile-phone policy, treatment of pupils or response to racial tensions. Although race probably played an important part in the attackers’ motivation, the claimants failed to establish a relevant duty, breach or causation arising from the race-equality arrangements. The alleged deficiencies did not make the attack more likely than not to occur.
5. Events on 11 January 2007. The responsible staff acted within the reasonable range of professional responses. The information available did not require the investigation to be abandoned, further interviews to be conducted immediately, CCTV to be reviewed, staff to be alerted, or Henry to be removed or detained. The risk of an outsider armed with a hammer was not reasonably foreseeable.
6. Human rights claim. The attack was sufficiently severe to fall within Article 3. However, the positive obligation required knowledge, actual or constructive, of a real and immediate risk of such treatment. The school could not reasonably have known of that risk. The claimants therefore failed under Human Rights Act 1998 as well as in negligence.
7. The First Claimant’s action was dismissed. The claims of the other claimants, which depended upon Henry’s claim, were dismissed.