The Cane in UK Schools7

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.”