13th March 2004
A PLAYSCHOOL has been ordered to pay £300 to a four-year-old boy it expelled for twice hitting a teacher with a Thomas the Tank Engine toy.
A scribbled note was pushed through the family letterbox late at night on a weekend informing them that he had been "permanently excluded".
But Verwood First pre-school in Dorset refused to discuss the matter and ignored solicitors' letters.
Yesterday Southampton county court ruled a breach of human rights, saying the boy, who is now at another school, should not have been thrown out.
His mum said: "He was only four and can't have hit her that hard and she should have taken it off him after the first time."