A council was criticised by a public services watchdog yesterday after a poster containing details of a pupil with cystic fibrosis was displayed in school.
Staff at John Paul II Primary in Viewpark, Uddingston, made up the poster to let people know what they should do if 10-year-old Kieran Innes became ill. However, his mother, Iris, complained to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, claiming her son had been left "humiliated".
In a report published yesterday, the Ombudsman upheld Mrs Innes's complaint that North Lanarkshire Council had failed to provide a proper explanation for the school's actions. The Ombudsman also recommended the council make a full apology.
The report said: "Mrs Innes had not given permission for the photograph to be taken for this purpose, and would not have given it. Nor would she have given approval for the display of this document. She was appalled."
Mrs Innes, whose eldest daughter, Natasha, also had cystic fibrosis and died when she was 18, said: "He Kieran was totally humiliated. I was disgusted that anybody could do that."
Ray Murphy, North Lanarkshire Council's education officer, said the authority had yet to receive a copy of the Ombudsman's report, but would "study it in detail".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article