I'm glad the judge was reasonable on this one. Of course a teacher should never ever strike a child, but at the same time, teenagers have this "fun" tendency to be dicks, and he was clearly provoked. They threw a fucking table at him? Of course he's going to react, it takes a hell of a lot of training to not, certainly more than teachers receive and certainly more than they're paid for.
An 18 month conditional release seems reasonable to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
While I agree that a degree of reasonableness was used by the judge in this case, it shouldn’t be discounted that he punched a student in the back of the head. He essentially coward punched the kid and as we know, a single punch to the back of the head can and has resulted in death. While I don’t think he should have been charged with nor convicted of Attempted Murder like others who have engaged in coward punching, the fact that his punch could have resulted in him killing the student shouldn’t be swept under the rug.
If he had punched the student in the chest, pushed them, kicked them away with his feet etc. I don’t think he should have been charged at all, but he specifically chose to use a closed fist to the back of a person’s head. That’s not self-defence, nor is it reasonable behaviour under any circumstances. We shouldn’t ever excuse a person’s choice to use potentially lethal violence.
I didn't catch that part, and that does definitely change my thoughts on it