TEACHERS have voted overwhelmingly to walk out if a teenager who struck a colleague is allowed back into class.

It is exactly a week since Fearns High School in Stacksteads was forced to accept 13-year-old Matthew Nixon back into the school. He is being taught by teachers from the home tuition service in isolation.

Today, officers from County Hall were trying to negotiate the teenager's future education after teachers in three unions voted 100 per cent not to teach him and more than 90 per cent to take industrial action if Matthew comes back in class.

The ballot result has left head teacher Neil Thornley in a no-win situation. He said: "If the mother insists and I have to put him back in class then 880 children will be on the streets. "If I don't have him in class and I send him home then I could be disciplined myself."

Matthew was excluded after a playground fight in May resulted in an experienced teacher being hit in the face.

Since then his mum, Miss Mary Hamnett, has failed in several appeals before finally an independent panel ordered the school to take her son back.

The results of the ballot of the three unions, the National Association of Teachers, National Association Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, have now been passed on to Lancashire County Council.

Mr Thornley added: "The principle remains that teachers do not come to work to be hit or even to have the risk of being hit.

"We take the situation very seriously given the very intense atmosphere surrounding violence and the tragedy of what happened to Philip Lawrence."

A spokeswoman for County Hall said: "The education authority is not able to comment on individual cases.

"It is however working closely with the head teacher to try to bring about a resolution of the problem."

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