Graphic content warning: the following article contains elements that may be disturbing to some readers.
Elementary school principal Robin McGrath once threatened a developmentally delayed child with a pair of scissors in an effort to correct his behaviour, a teacher told the court Wednesday morning.
The teacher took the witness stand in Provincial Court in St. John’s, where McGrath is on trial for assaulting and threatening special needs students.
The woman, who was a substitute instructional resource teacher at a C.B.S. school for six weeks in 2017, told the court the child had pulled the electrical cords down from the classroom smartboard earlier in the day. McGrath learned of the incident when he stopped by the classroom later, as she and the child were sitting at a table doing schoolwork.
“He asked me to get him a pair of scissors,” the teacher said, explaining classroom supplies were kept in locked cupboards to prevent the child from throwing them or injuring himself. She handed McGrath the scissors, she said, and he held them up to the child, saying, “If you do it again I’ll chop your fingers off.”
“(The child) looked at me, surprised,” the teacher testified. “I don’t know that he knew McGrath wasn’t going to do that, but I didn’t think he meant he would. I believed he was saying it to (the child) as a way to curb his behaviour.”
Ian Patey, who is one of two lawyers representing McGrath, asked the teacher whether it was possible McGrath had instead said to the child, “Get out of that before you cut your fingers off.” The boy was reported to have attempted to cut his hand in the past, Patey noted.
“I never heard it, but I guess it’s something someone would say to any student if they were attempting to cut themselves with scissors,” the teacher replied. She indicated the child had not been using scissors at the time.
Another staff member from the same elementary school will take the stand when court resumes this afternoon.
McGrath’s trial began Monday with the testimony of a teacher who alleges she witnessed McGrath assault the same child on a number of occasions. She told the court she saw McGrath step on the boy’s hand until he cried out in pain in an effort to make him get up off the floor; knee the non-compliant boy in the back as he dragged him to another room, and tip the boy out of his chair, drag him to the washroom and douse him with cold water in the shower until he vomited as punishment for refusing to go to music class.
Another time, the teacher said, the boy had been sitting quietly when McGrath beckoned her over and said he wanted to show her something. McGrath dug his thumb into the child’s collarbone area until he cried out, the teacher testified. She said McGrath then told her it was a way to get the child to obey.
McGrath’s lawyers cross-examined the woman on why she had not reported the alleged assaults until the end of the year, despite school district protocol and her training when it comes to her duty to immediately report suspected incidents of child abuse.
The teacher said she had been threatened and intimidated by McGrath and she had been too frightened to say anything.
“I don’t begin to sit here and tell you that not reporting it was right. I have to live with that forever,” the teacher replied, crying.
She shouted and pointed towards McGrath as she added, “I have to live with that because this man right here did that in my presence!”
Looking directly at McGrath, she shouted, “You! Not me, you! I didn’t do this, you did!”
