BREACHES OF CONTRACT, DOCUMENTED LIES, and FORGERIES BY SENIOR FULL-TIME
OFFICIALS AND LAY OFFICERS OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF TEACHERS (NUT)

OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION  
Most (and perhaps all) teachers join a trade union in order to protect their professional reputation, position, and prospects. The fundamental need to extend protection is, for example, enshrined within the Rules of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), which represent the contract between the member and the NUT [cf., Letter (7th December 1998) from The Rt. Hon. Ian McCartney, MP (Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry) to The Rt. Hon. David Heathcoat-Amory, MP (House of Commons)].  Pro-active Union protection for teachers should also result in children being less vulnerable: conversely, any failure by the Union to fulfil this contractual duty, when mirrored by any inaction of the agencies responsible for children's welfare, may have disastrous and far-reaching consequences for their well-being. 

Presented here are details - including verbatim extracts of documents - which reveal that, within the period 1994 to the present, several senior full-time officials and lay officers of the NUT:
breached (and continue to breach) NUT Rules 2(b), 2(j), 2(m), 2(n), 43(c;iii), 50(a), 50(b), 51, 52, 53, and 54 [Ms. Judith Elderkin (President), Doug McAvoy (General Secretary), Richard Card (South West Regional Secretary), and Vince Allen (South West Principal Officer)] - and, therefore, repeatedly and wilfully broke (and continue in breach of) the aforementioned contract;
lied in documents [Ms. Judith Elderkin, Doug McAvoy, Richard Card, and Vince Allen]; and
constructed forged documents [Vince Allen].

SUMMARY
On 14th July 1994 I wrote to my NUT County Secretary, George Morris (G.M.), about my grave concerns regarding child welfare at Quantock School: most unexpectedly, G.M. - with the endorsement of the Regional Office - informed the local Social Services Director (Chris Davies) of these concerns, without either my prior knowledge or approval.  Recognition of the implications of such action for any teacher's professional reputation, position, and prospects is evinced by:
(1) Union Rules 2(m), 2(n), and 53;
(2) County Secretary George Morris {extract of a letter from him to myself on the 15th July 1994: "... I would stress that the reason I went to the top [of Somerset Social Services], so to speak, was to ensure that your position would be protected. ..." and "... As I say, I emphasised the need to protect your position and I received this assurance. ..."};
(3) the NUT Senior Solicitor, Graham Clayton {extract of a letter from him to Adrian Capes, my Area Secretary, on the 20th August 1996: "... The legal battle began after Mr. Donnan's employment relationship with Quantock School ended and that event was of course on the cards from the moment when Mr. Donnan bravely decided to be a "Whistleblower". ..."}; and
(4) Regional Secretary Card {extract of a letter from him to Mick Lerry, Somerset Divisional Secretary, on the 18th November 1999: "... When dealing with individual casework it is important that the initial record clearly indicates the date when the case was drawn to the Union's attention, be this at Regional Office or local level, and that the nature of the case is established so that it can be determined whether the matter could be tenure threatening. ..."}.
Despite these implications, I received no advice, assistance, or protection - cf. Rules 2(b), 2(j), 2(m), 2(n), and 53 - from either the NUT's Regional or County Secretaries prior to my dismissal on the 31st December 1994.

During the period from July to November 1994, I became increasingly concerned by the apparent lack of action by the Social Services, particularly because I suspected that this Agency had done little or nothing about my report of suspected abuse in the school in 1992.  The consequent counter-accusations from the school itself were therefore a further source of increasing anxiety.  Indeed, an entry on my file - purporting to be for 20 October 1994, but in fact fraudulently concocted by NUT South West Principal Officer Vince Allen for the visit of my NUT Area Secretary, Adrian Capes, to examine my file in April 1996 - records my reference to the school's desperate attempts to discredit me immediately following Allen's request to log any attempts by the school to get me out.  Despite my keeping NUT Regional Office informed of events, there was a total absence of any advice, assistance, or protection from them, yet NUT General Secretary Doug McAvoy stated in a letter of the 30th June 1997: "...I have been satisfied that appropriate attention has been given to your case by officials employed by the Union ...".  However, as my duty of care towards the children was paramount and as I was now convinced that, with both Agencies now involved, the situation would imminently be exposed, I held my counsel.  But, on the 7th December 1994 - with my professional position now directly threatened by Social Services - I formally sought Legal Assistance from the NUT Regional Office, under Rule 50, in order to secure the protection already assured at the outset by the Director of the same Agency.  Again, most unexpectedly, this legal assistance was not forthcoming from the NUT; more specifically, the Regional Secretary, Richard Card, executed none of the protocols (50(b)) required of him under this Rule.  Thus, prior to 31st December 1994, the NUT had breached Rules 2(b), 2(j), 2(m), 2(n), 50, and 53; and, subsequently, these breaches were approved by the NUT General Secretary (see extract above).

Following my dismissal by Quantock School, and a further unexplained two-month delay by the Regional Secretary, I was now advised by him to make a request for legal assistance; however, whereas my first, unilateral request had been 'to protect my position', the basis for this second request was now 'unfair dismissal from my position'.  Nevertheless, despite nominally receiving legal assistance from two NUT Regional Solicitors - Ms. Prince (before taking maternity leave) and (then) Ms. Freezer - during the period from March to July 1995, the NUT's attempts to prosecute the substantive aspects of the case were nugatory - as can be adjudged from these two extracts: (1) from Ms. Freezer to myself, on the 7th July 1995, "... I have written to Inspector Vince at the Wellsprings Police Station and have requested that papers relating to the case be released. ... [and] ... I shall advise you when these have been received. ..."; but (2) from  Det. Insp. Vince to myself on the 16 July 1996: "... The fact of the matter is that your solicitor [Ms. Freezer] did not seek a file that she knew was in existence. ...".  Thus, during the period from March to July 1995 dealing with my second request, the NUT fulfilled the «letter» of Rule 50 whilst wilfully breaching its «spirit» (and this led, inevitably, to an unsatisfactory outcome in an Industrial Tribunal); moreover, there was a continuing absence of advice, assistance, or protection concerning my professional reputation [cf. Rules 2(m), 2(n), and 53] - a situation which has remained resolutely unchanged to the present day.

From July 1995 to May 2000, I - together with my NUT Area Secretary, Adrian Capes - sought to engage various senior full-time officials and lay officers of the NUT [inter alia: Ms. Judith Elderkin (President), Tony Brockman (Senior Vice-President), Doug McAvoy (General Secretary), Graham Clayton (Senior Solicitor), and Richard Card (South West Regional Secretary)]:
(1) to acknowledge the NUT's multiple breaches of Rules 2(b), 2(j), 2(m), 2(n), 50, and 53 between July and December 1994;
(2) to recognise the unsatisfactory implementation of Rule 50 between March and July 1995; 
(3) to initiate the processes of compensation, conciliation and arbitration, under Rules 43(c;iii), 51 and 52, respectively;
(4) to implement a third request for legal assistance, under Rule 50, in order to observe the Union Rules by exercising my entitlement to challenge the Union's breaches of rules and, therefore, contract.*; and,
(5) to examine the professional conduct of Doug McAvoy, under Rule 54 and Appendix 1.
[* As evinced by this extract from Richard Card to my solicitor, Mr. P. Brierley, on the 26th February 1998, "... In line with the provisions of Rule 50 I have considered the request [of the 20th February 1998] and have decided not to approve the matter ...", the South West Regional Secretary - for a second time (see above) - decided to execute none of the protocols (50(b)) required of him under this Rule: thereby breaching this Rule (50) for a second time.]
The outcome of these attempts by Adrian Capes and myself can be brutally summarized by stating that they provided - in the form of both documentary evidence and inaction - vehicles for the aforementioned senior officials to breach Rules 2(m), 2(n), 43(c;iii), 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54 on one or more (additional) occasions. Whilst the vast bulk of this documentary evidence is straightforward (if mind-numbingly tedious) to analyse, it is nevertheless an unguardedly repetitious hotchpotch of dissimulation, disinformation, and misinformation.  I have therefore only selected verbatim extracts which exemplify the naked lies by Richard Card (South West Regional Secretary), Doug McAvoy (General Secretary), and  Ms. Judith Elderkin (President), together with verbatim copies of the quite extraordinary forgeries constructed by Vince Allen (South West Principal Officer).