MailOnline has picked up on the story we’ve been highlighting in our daily newsletter for over a week: a 12 year-old schoolgirl is suing a Sheffield multi-academy trust for “requiring and encouraging” pupils to wear face masks. The case is being supported by lawyers at the Law or Fiction group.
A schoolgirl is suing a school for “requiring” pupils to wear face masks which she says “risks causing children serious harm” to their physical and mental health.
The pupil is suing the Tapton Academy School Trust, which runs a number of primary and secondary schools in the Sheffield area, to stop it from “requiring or encouraging” children to wear masks at school to prevent the spread of Covid.
The 12 year-old, known only as AB, who is exempt from wearing a mask at school, says mask-wearing could lead to “long-term” harm.
But the Trust argues that it only encourages the wearing of masks, in line with Government guidance, in order to protect children, staff and visitors.
The Trust also says that 120 members of staff across its various schools, representing more than 10% of its total staff, have contracted coronavirus since the end of August last year.
At a remote hearing today, AB’s lawyers asked the High Court to grant an interim injunction preventing her school and the Trust from making children wear masks.
Francis Hoar, representing AB, told the court: “The school’s policy risks causing children serious harm to their physical health and their mental health.” …
“If the Trust had done its job properly… it would have gathered evidence and reached a view as to the effectiveness of this particular measure, but it has done no such thing.
“There is no evidence, effectively, of the efficacy of these instruments that are supposedly necessary to avoid the risk of transmission of the virus.”
He argued in written submissions: “The available evidence shows that not only is there no additional risk of transmission of the virus in school settings but also that, by comparison to any ordinary social or work setting, the risk is likely to be lower given the extremely low prevalence of the virus in schools.”
Mr Hoar accepted that AB did not have to wear a mask at school, but added: “The child is still faced with a school environment where a child, save those who are disabled should, must rather, wear masks, and that is enforced, the child says, aggressively.”
Worth reading in full.
If you want to contribute to AB’s CrowdJustice fundraiser, you can find it here.
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