In the case of a head teacher in Woking UK, it cost taxpayers £400,000 to compensate her for the fact that the local education authority allowed a couple of obdurate Muslims to bully her into obsequious tolerance.
But she fought back:
A head teacher whose health and career were ruined by false accusations of racism and religious discrimination at a primary school dominated by Muslims has won £400,000 in damages.
Erica Connor was forced into early retirement through stress after governors at New Monument School in Woking turned her into a scapegoat by claiming she was Islamophobic.
But the local education authority failed to help her as its “excessively tolerant” officers were more worried about complaints to the race equality watchdog than her suffering.
The court heard that in 1998 Mrs Connor took over the school – where up to 85 per cent of pupils were Muslim and 90 per cent spoke English as a second language – and test results improved “very considerably” for the first few years.
However in 2003 two new members – Paul Martin, a parent governor, and Mumtaz Saleem, a nominee of the local education authority – joined its governing body and tried to take it over.
The judge, Mr John Leighton-Williams, QC, said: “I am satisfied that they sought to monopolise governors body meetings with a view to imposing their own agenda and were prepared to do so regardless of the interests of the school and anyone who resisted that agenda.”
It’s easy to imagine the reaction that similar tactics by two Christians on the governing body would have provoked.