Evening Standard, London, 30 October 1978
Girl who’s afraid of going to school
By Sue Reid
TEENAGER Sue Olds will not go back to Bacon’s comprehensive in London’s dockland — because a caning is waiting for her.
Fourteen-year-old Sue faces a dose of the cane before she is allowed back into class at the 1000-pupil Church of England school — revealed recently as a “top-caning” comprehensive.
And today after three weeks suspension for truancy she says: “I cannot go back there. I have been warned I will be caned and I cannot stand it again.”
“I want to go to another school. They have caned me six or seven times at Bacon’s — once in front of some boys — and every time I get ill.”