Horrifying moment teaching assistant is caught kicking & punching disabled schoolboy, 11, in playground
THIS is the disturbing moment a teaching assistant was caught attacking an 11-year-old disabled pupil at a special school.
The grainy footage shows William Kevin Clifford, 61, attacking autistic Tobie Orlowski, who is also mute, in a playground in Wolverhampton.
Clifford pushes Tobie over, forcing his face into the ground before he punches the schoolboy, who has a mental age of 2.
He then appears to kick the young boy as other schoolkids continue to play nearby.
The vulnerable child then tries to crawl away from Clifford who continues to chase him.
The disgraced teaching assistant then knees him in the back in front of what looks like outdoor seating while onlookers continue to lurk.
The physical assault at Tettenhall Wood School continued for 20 minutes but only four minutes were captured by the school’s CCTV.
It is not known what brought on the attack.
Clifford was handed a suspended jail sentence earlier this month at Wolverhampton Crown Court before the grim footage was released.
On July 10, the court handed him a nine month jail term, suspended for 18 months, along with 150 hours of unpaid work.
Tobie’s mum Charlotte has now called for all special schools to have CCTV following the shocking attack on her son in April last year.
She told the BBC: “To see that man attack him in a place he thought was safe – it was just horrendous.
“I was devastated, I was horrified. For the life of me I cannot understand what would make a person want to do that.
“If that security camera had not picked it up, then we would never have known what had happened to Tobie.”
Despite her plea calling for all special schools to have CCTV, she described staff at Tettenhall Wood School as “formidable”.
She stressed that if this could happen at her son’s school, it could “happen anywhere”.
The mum added: “We are not calling for CCTV in all schools, only settings where there are vulnerable children.
“So many of our children can’t speak, they can’t tell us what happened. They’re not credible witnesses.
“If something has happened, there’s nothing, there’s no cameras, there’s no footage, no evidence. We cannot get justice without CCTV.”
Charlotte described Tobie as “very resilient” but explained he has been left so traumatised by last year’s events he struggles to trust people now.
She added: “I’m so proud of him, he’s back in the same school, with his trusted adults – who I know and trust too.
“He’s doing so well, despite what that man did to him.”
Samantha Pearson, Charlotte’s cousin, criticised the sentence handed to Clifford after the hearing.
She said: “He didn’t receive anything that could be even slightly classed as appropriate punishment.
“Charlotte collected Tobie from school as usual. She did notice his anxiety seemed heightened.
“But as he is totally non-verbal, Tobie couldn’t, and will never be able to, tell his mommy what was wrong.
“By the time Charlotte got home with Tobie, she was called by the school head to be informed that Tobie had in fact been cruelly attacked that day by a teaching assistant.
“That day marked a total collapse in any trust and settled nature that Tobie had.
“Tobie had no say in the suffering he faced, and still doesn’t.
“The school have worked tirelessly with Tobie and continue to support Charlotte and Tobie to make him feel it’s one of his safe places again.”
A GoFundMe run by Samantha lists Tobie as suffering from several disabilities, with the “most severe diagnoses” including non-verbal autism and sensory processing disorder.
The judge deemed Clifford had already suffered for his actions, and spared him a lengthy jail term.
He told the court: “William Kevin Clifford has several mitigating factors and a huge amount of suffering whilst waiting for this case to be concluded.
“This includes anxiety, weight gain and the inability to secure any employment.”
A statement from Tettenhall Wood School headteacher Ross Ashcroft read: “Following the recent prosecution and subsequent sentence of William Kevin Clifford, we only wish to state that the person in question has not been in school since the day that the incident occurred and his employment was subsequently terminated.
“The school have followed all processes correctly in dealing with this matter with children’s safety and wellbeing always at the heart of everything we do.”