Headteacher case cost council £80,000

Unions criticised the length of Mrs Evans' ordeal

The long-running suspention saga of headteacher Marjorie Evans has cost taxpayers in Monmouthshire nearly £80,000, it has been revealed.

Education chiefs have published end-of-year accounts which show the bill ran to £77,460 to handle the controversial case of Mrs Evans.

Marjorie Evans: An 18-month battle to return to her post

She was suspended from her school for 18 months after a 10-year-old pupil alleged she had assaulted him - before being allowed back to classes after being cleared in court and disciplinary hearings.

Education officials at Monmouthshire County Council revealed the figure after admitting they went £400,000 over budget - with the "exceptional one-off" cost of Mrs Evans' case.

About a third of the £77,000 bill covers the local authority's legal costs in its clash with the respected headteacher, with the rest for administration and staffing costs.

Further expenditure is expected to be incurred once negotiations over a compensation claim by Mrs Evans are finalised.

Mrs Evans had been head teacher of St Mary's Junior School in Caldicot, Monmouthshire, for 13 years when she was arrested in September 1999.

NUT Cymru general secretary Gethin Lewis supported Mrs Evans

She was convicted of assaulting a 10-year-old boy at Abergavenny Magistrates Court.

Mrs Evans took the case to the Court of Appeal and was cleared when Mr Justice McKinnon ruled there was "no credible evidence" against her.

But instead of returning immediately to her desk, Mrs Evans remained suspended after further allegations were made against her.

Police then launched a new inquiry into the further allegations made after she was cleared in court.

The Crown Prosecution Service studied a 400-page report but decided there was not the evidence to press charges.

Mrs Evans has now returned to St Mary's School

But governors decided to hold a disciplinary hearing into the new allegations against her.

Mrs Evans, of Usk, Monmouthshire, was finally reinstated in March 2001 after a 19-hour governors' disciplinary hearing threw out the fresh allegations against her.

In July, a Welsh Assembly report into the case condemned education chiefs over their handling of Mrs Evans and the amount of time the investigation took.