Encomium
Regina Hungerford, 54, was convicted of assault after losing her temper when a 17 year-old boy refused to stop listening to music in her class.
The Merthyr Tydfil teacher who taught French and German had been in the South Wales college for 14 years. She was provoked when the student kept on playing music video on his phone in Maths class, and when she told him to stop, he responded, “You can’t make me.”
Angered by this response, she admitted to the boy’s year tutor, Yvonne Murphy, she hit the boy with a book.
Hungerford, a widow was found guilty of common assault and ordered to complete 60 hours unpaid work and 12-month community order was imposed on her. She will also have to pay £620 prosecution costs, a £520 criminal courts charge and a £60 statutory surcharge. She also faces being struck off the teaching register because of the criminal conviction.
The mother of two who is now without her teaching job is battling to save her career and promises ‘to do her best to overturn the miscarriage of justice’. Now she can no longer volunteer in her community to serve as she has been a member of the Girl Guides for 25 years.
