A MOTHER has criticised the treatment her son received when he fell from a fence at his school and broke his arm.

Jess Fisher was injured as he tried to get out of school at lunchtime against school rules His mum, Helen Fisher, claimed staff at Millthorpe School, York, failed in their duty of care towards 14-year-old Jess, who was also cut on the leg by a spike on the fence.

She said Jess was in agony when he went to reception, but was initially asked to repay £2 which he had borrowed previously, and was subsequently told to go to the toilets to wipe the cut with a tissue.

She said it was only then that staff tried to call his parents, who took him to hospital, where X-rays showed he had suffered three fractures to his left arm between the elbow and wrist.

Mrs Fisher, of South Bank, said the accident happened when her son had been trying to get out of school one lunchtime to buy some chips, against school rules.

“He slipped and the spike went into his leg to a depth of about an inch and a half,” she said. “He managed to get his leg free of the spike but then fell to the ground, landing on his arm.”

She said she accepted Jess, a Year 9 pupil, should not have been trying to climb the fence, and that the school should take appropriate action. “I am not in any way condoning what he was doing,” she said.

But she felt a school’s first priority when a pupil was injured should be to ensure they received treatment, regardless of the circumstances. “I believe they have a duty of care in such circumstances,” she said.

Steve Smith, executive head teacher, declined to go into detail about the incident, which he said was confidential.

However, he said at the time it happened – at the end of lunchtime – the reception had been very busy with a number of pupils who were ill or had hurt themselves, rather in the way that A&E was sometimes inundated with patients.

He said, as with any such incident, the school would always seek to improve its procedures. He said: “The school takes its duty of care to all pupils extremely seriously.” He said only Year 11 pupils were allowed out of school at lunchtime.