I saw this in the newsfeeds today. It’s in The Sun, which loves this kind of “shocking” story, but it raises a few questions.
Emily Higgins was out at a nightclub in the West Midlands and had apparently done what many young people do when they’re out in nightclubs in the West Midlands. She got pissed, then started a slanging match with bouncers. But this is the Facebook age, remember, and someone with time on their hands (and 16,000 followers) videoed the altercation and published it on social media. Quite why he chose to do this is a bit of a mystery if you don’t automatically think “tosser”.
Ms Higgins is due to start teaching year two at St Gregory’s Catholic Primary School in Bearwood in a few weeks, and inevitably in such a small area one of the followers of the film taker was a parent of one of the kids at the school, and recognised Ms Higgins. Word spread – or rather, shit was thrown – and as far as Ms Higgins is concerned it has now hit the fan.
One of the funniest bits is from a parent who “wished to remain anonymous”. Yeah, I’ll bet she does.
I was completely shocked when I saw the video and recognised her immediately.
I know that parents in our community have been shocked and disgusted by her behaviour.
Bearwood is part of Smethwick, and is just a few km from Birmingham city centre. The streets around the school are primarily small terraced houses. In spite of that, the above quote suggests that the occupants are angels straight out of Heaven who simply use Bearwood as a summer address. In reality, I would suggest that what Ms Higgins has done in her own time – and which didn’t involve the police, from the reports – is no worse than what many of these “shocked” parents get up to (either now, or in the past).
And how many teachers out there have gotten themselves drunk and done something stupid and/or embarrassing? As long as they don’t do it in front of the kids, or have it affect their work, it doesn’t matter.
The only reason THIS has been put in front of the kids is because of the berk with the camera and his Facebook fetish. He could have written about it, but what he has done is bordering on an invasion of privacy since it doesn’t place things in context but it does identify people in such a way that their entire career could be destroyed.
Emily Higgins is likely to lose her job over this, and being a teacher it would also be the end of her career. Is a drunken argument with bouncers – something which happens a hundred times every weekend – really bad enough to warrant that?
Someone accessed this story recently (February 2017). I’d forgotten about it, but a quick check of the staff list on the St Gregory’s website doesn’t show Emily Higgins as one of them.
Poor girl. The screeching harridans of the terraces nearby got their pounds of flesh.