School governor’s ‘ignorance’ of Sikh girls needs cost £76,000
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Nov 17, 2008 - 11:12:55 PM
A traumatic experience for a Sikh girl, Sarika Watkins- Singh cost tax payers over £76,000, an MP is outraged at the school governor’s decision to allow this to happen.
Sarika Watkins-Singh, now 15, was suspended from Aberdare Girls’ School after insisting she should be allowed to wear her Kara, one of the five symbols of Sikh identity.
The school argued she could not wear the bracelet because it contravened a ban on jewellery.
With the help of the human rights group Liberty, Sarika challenged the school’s decision and won a judicial review case in the High Court.
Now, following a Freedom of Information request by local Labour MP Ann Clwyd, it has emerged that the school’s legal fees came to £76,699.40.
Having lost the case, the school will also have to pay Liberty’s legal costs, which are understood to be on top of that amount – and could bring the cost to the school to thousands more pounds.
Ms Clwyd said: "I am very concerned about the waste of taxpayers’ money on a case which I and others told the governors they would lose. I knew from speaking to fellow Labour MPs representing areas like Wolverhampton, where there is a large Sikh population, that Sikhs are a protected minority under the Race Relations Act. There is an important case dating from 1983 that went to the House of Lords and confirmed Sikhs’ rights.
"I am afraid that I have not found the school at all co-operative in dealing with inquiries I have made about this matter. I do not know which budget the legal fees will be paid from." Reported Wales Online.
A spokeswoman for Rhondda Cynon Taf Council, the local education authority, said: "This is a matter entirely for the school, which is responsible for its own budget."