14 DAY TRIAL // Police were called to a primary school in Warwickshire, England, after two pupils allegedly spiked their teacher's coffee with a bleach-like liquid, reports say.
The schoolboys, both aged ten, put a toxic chemical substance into teacher Emma Place's coffee flask during lessons while her back was turned. When the woman wanted to take a sip of the poisoned drink, another pupil warned her of the danger, telling her what had happened while she wasn't looking.
According to Daily Mail, the incident happened on Tuesday at Clapham Terrace Community Primary School in Leamington Spa. The two boys were reportedly suspended following the incident, but Warwickshire Police says they didn't realize the “seriousness or severity” of their actions.
The youngsters involved in this incident are believed to belong to a gang at the school who call themselves “The mafia,” and had drawn up a “hit list” of six teachers they were planning on targeting.
“It's impossible to say how much malice was behind it, or whether it was simply a playground prank that went too far. This is a good, friendly primary school so no one can understand how this incident has happened. It has left the parents who know about it in shock,” one parent said of the incident after receiving a letter about it from the school's officials.
Philip Robbins, the chairman of governors at the school, said that neither Ms. Place nor the school would not be pressing charges, so none of the young students was taken into custody.
“Emma dealt with it well. Of course the school is giving her support. The school has dealt with the situation appropriately and we’re hoping to move on,” he said. “It was put in the hands of the police. Neither the school nor the teacher are pressing charges. The pupils were not arrested as far as I'm aware.”
The substance used to lace the 39-year-old teacher's drink has not yet been identified, but police determined that this was just an isolated incident that “got out of hand.”
After the news broke, a lot of people were outraged by the idea of primary school children plotting in gangs against teachers. What's more worrying though is the fact that this incident comes less than a week after the fatal stabbing of teacher Ann Maguire at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds, raising concerns about the safety of teachers in the classroom.