Leonora Rustamova defends racy novel for teenage boys

Jul 8 2009 By Barry Gibson

The story was popular with the class and the school’s head teacher Stephen Ball. Ms Rustamova said: “He gave it a green light, he said it was a good way to get these children involved. The head teacher suggested it would be nice to bind up the story and give it to the children.”

Ms Rustamova put the story on to a website which allowed her to have the book printed and bound. She said: “It ended up on a self-publishing website for some time. I pretty much forgot about it.”

But this January she was suspended from the school. She said: “There was a complaint from another member of staff. I was utterly stunned when I was suspended.”

In March police were called to the school after more than 250 pupils protested against her suspension. In May she was sacked by the school’s board of governors.

Ms Rustamova was asked by BBC Radio 5 Live’s Victoria Derbyshire about a sleep-over at her house involving the five boys last May.

She said: “All the parents were happy for them to come along. They were lovely. They played football in the field and then we had a barbecue. It seemed safer for the boys to stay because they often get in trouble on the way to and from events.”

Travis Downs, who was one of the boys in the class, also spoke on the radio show. The 17-year-old said: “I had never read a book before on my own. I thought it was excellent that my teacher cared enough about us to write a book about us.”

Ms Rustamova could now be struck off by the General Teaching Council.

Calder High chair of governors Rob Good said: “The last few months have been difficult for the school. There has been an immense amount of publicity about this case and we want to put this matter behind us and move on.”