Calum’s Law: One mother’s fight to help special school children ‘battered and bruised’ by restraint

For Beth Morrison, the details of 21 September 2010 remain etched in her memory.

She had walked onto her driveway in Dundee to collect her disabled son from his school taxi, when the driver told her: “There’s something wrong with Calum.”

She immediately noticed that his lips were blue, he was wearing different clothing with no socks or underwear and his school uniform was soaked wet with urine in a plastic bag. Calum, who has epilepsy, cerebral palsy, autism and learning disabilities, collapsed into her arms and said: “I’m dizzy mummy, teacher hurt”.

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Mrs Morrison called the school immediately but received no response. It wasn’t until Monday that she found out her then 11-year-old son had been held face-down for 40 minutes by nine staff members. Calum had lost consciousness and urinated before being strapped down in his wet clothes to a chair, while staff stood over him with an egg timer to “show him he was being punished”.

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Calum’s parents had been delighted when he received a place at Kingspark, a special needs school. At the time, his epilepsy had been “uncontrollable”, and Kingspark provided a fully staffed medical unit and an enhanced support area, where a crash team of medics could reach pupils within two minutes.

His ‘crime’? Failing to understand a teacher’s request for him to get off a bike that he was riding in the school gym. Upon speaking to the headteacher, Mrs Morrison says she was told: “Don’t worry, we can handle this. Calum needs to learn to behave.”

“It was all recorded,” Mrs Morrison said. “The headteacher went to a multi-agency meeting and police were told that the staff had no intent to harm Calum. The police didn’t take it any further.

“Other parents from the school started to contact me to say this happened to their children. In the end, the police had to investigate eight children, eight cases and it was the same staff involved every time.” Due to the difficulties in interviewing the children, with many including Calum being non-verbal, no charges were ever brought.

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“An investigation into the circumstances was carried out and a report was subsequently submitted to the Procurator Fiscal,” a Scotland Police spokesperson said. Kingspark school was approached by The Independent but did not provide a comment.

Over the last decade, Mrs Morrison has become a vocal activist for ‘Calum’s Law’, a petition to curb physical restraint and seclusion in educational settings and has spoken to 3,500 parents across the UK.

Stories include children being locked for hours in seclusion rooms and forced to urinate in the corners, young children being left with bruises across their bodies after being pinned down and non-verbal children being punished for making noises.

Calum’s Law, which is being supported by Labour MSP Daniel Johnson, is now being proposed to ensure compulsory training for all teachers on how to curb physical restraint.

A consultation has begun on a new members’ bill which would ensure the current guidelines become legally enforceable, with mandatory recording of all incidents. It is due to conclude on Tuesday, 12 September.

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Describing the recording of restraint as “patchy”, Mrs Morrison said: “The law says if you use physical restraint, it must be used as a last resort but there is no definition of what a last resort is. It comes down to every teacher’s definition of a last resort.

“I know children who have been restrained for being cheeky, that is what has been written in the incident report. I’ve had so many children who have used behaviour to indicate they’re not coping like rocking back and forward or squealing to get attention, and they’ve been restrained for that.”

In 2017, she set up the charity Positive & Active Behaviour Support Scotland (PABSS) and by October 2019, she had received word from 436 families. This figure increased by a further 613 by October 2021, with another 697 reporting injuries by July 2023.

Just 33 of these children had their injuries recorded by the school, while none were reported to police or child protection services. A breakdown of the data reveals that 80% of the children are aged under eight years old, with 29% being six years old. All but one of the children reported to PABSS had a diagnosis or a disability.

In one case study, a family reported that their 10-year-old son had been left strapped in his wheelchair in the rain without a coat as part of a teacher’s punishment.

Another family reported that their autistic son suffers nightmares after being repeatedly locked in a small cupboard, while others had witnessed their children being “grabbed, pulled and manhandled” by staff.

Ms Morrison has also launched support pages in England, Wales and Ireland, and provided 250 cases to the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Westminster, who agreed that recording incidents of restraint should be mandatory in English schools.

She is now hoping for the same success in Scotland, and to ensure better awareness across the UK for restraint against children with complex needs. “At the moment there is no statutory guidance for staff, there is nothing to say this is what you don’t do,” she said. “There is nothing to say that the training has to be mandated, the training has to be accredited.”

Labour MSP Daniel Johnson, who is leading the private members bill, said he was “alarmed” by the data, and lack of clarity around using restraint. “What my bill will seek to do will put the guidance on a statutory basis,” he said.

“We want clear set of standards around communication and reporting, standards for a complaints system and most importantly, national standards for training on the use of this intervention.”