Boy excluded from school for wearing a dagger.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220117/Sikh-boy-excluded-school-wearing-ceremonial-dagger.html

A few days after a Sikh policeman was granted thousands in compensation for being asked to remove his turban and replacing it with an anti riot protective helmet, will we see yet another claim for compensation over this latest affair?

[bookbinder]

No doubt some lawyer is rubbing his hands already, so I think that a claim is inevitable. For what it's worth, I agree with the school. If the school head teacher allows this child to carry a knife, every other pupil will demand to be allowed to carry a knife, also. It's no good pointing out to the non-Sikh pupils that "he's a special case". The school has a problem on its hands.

[ludwig]

There may be a claim, which hopefully will fail. Schools need to be able to say - these are the rules, if you don't like them, go somewhere else. As far as I'm aware, that is generally what happens anyway.

[fredpuli47]

If any lawyer advises a claim be made in this case they're as misguided as the lay client ! The parents refused the compromise of the boy having a knife with a two inch/ 5cm blade, in a welded shut case. [The Times reports] Since the knife is symbolic, what's wrong with the compromise?

Incidentally, it's a defence, in a case of having a knife in a public place, to prove that it was there for religious reasons or that it's part of national dress.

[TTG]

Sorry but are they taking the mickey now? We are very tolerant of everyones beliefs but this is going too far. Its a weapon for goodness sake no matter which way you look at it.

[Avatar]

It's a sikh joke...

[anotheoldgit]

Sorry but my heads a little "Mussie" today.

[fredpuli47]

Yes,TTG, it's a weapon but, as stated, the law permits such a weapon to be with them in a public place,as Sikhs, 'for religious reasons' (and by Scotsmen in national costume), given the appropriate proof. The law also allows Sikhs on motorcycles not to wear helmets. If a Sikh wants to endanger himself, the argument must have run, then let him suffer the consequences.

I don't follow why anyone should be allowed to have a knife in a public place simply because their national dress includes a knife or a religion has sanctioned it. The defence is 'without prejudice to' the general one of 'good reason or lawful authority' (which is very difficult to establish). If someone is permitted to have a knife in a public place there must be both the temptation and the opportunity to use it unlawfully should the occasion arise (which is one reason why we have the law in the first place). The other specific defence, that the knife is for use at work, does make sense.It would be stupid to stop a carpenter or decorator having a knife for use at work when that, of necessity, means they have to have it in a public place on the way there !

This is a stunt. The boy can revert to being a ';man' once he's not in school. If he tried to enter many a building or board an aircraft with it he'd be stopped. What then would his father's argument be ?

[sp1814]

Complete stunt.

Nothing to do with being a Sikh, and A LOT to do with being a git. Idiocy knows no national boundaries. By the way, this isn't a growing trend...there are hundreds of thousands of Sikhs in the UK who don't make the papers because they're simply getting on with their lives. Two stories doen't change that.

I mean, it's not like all female nursery teachers are paedophiles, is it?

[socket2008]

What next, a religious freak is refused being able to wear a nuclear bomb strapped to his back and is then awarded thousands for hurt feelings.

In this case though, no way would they win any claim. Knives are the hot topic of the moment. If the child had been allowed to carry it and he had killed someone or someone took it off him and killed imagine the uproar.

Sometimes you have to draw the line on religion and common sense. The later is real the former is ultimately a myth about a man in the sky.

[New Judge]

Yes, the line does have to be drawn.

Unfortunately the current legal system in the UK is notoriously inept at drawing the line, a situation brought about mainly by the 1998 Human Rights Act, which itself stemmed from the European Convention on Human Rights,

Without those two “articles of faith” there would be no possibility of the boy having a questionable defence for carrying a knife in public. The fact that he has is testament to those appaling pieces of legislation.

The boy should not have simply been excluded from school. The matter should have been reported to the police. The CPS should decide whether a prosecution is warranted and if so a court (not the school governers) should then be asked to rule on whether the boy’s statutory defence applied.

And to pick up on fred’s point about crash helmets, when that legislation was framed the argument did not run along tyhe lines that “..if a Sikh wants to endanger himself, ... then let him suffer the consequences.” This argument could be applied to all motorcyclists of any faith. The exclusion was allowed simply to comply with the ECHR which allows freedom to follow one’s chosen religion (and to engage in all the foibles that go with it) even if this means providing exceptions to laws which everybody else must obey.

And that’s exactly the problem. Human Rights legislation “trumps” other laws and this is another example of it.