WITTER

The Office of the Public Defender has come out in defence of the island's teachers who have been victims of verbal and physical abuse by students' relatives in recent weeks.

Public Defender Earl Witter said that, since last September, some 15 cases of abuse against teachers in various learning institutions have been reported to the Jamaica Teachers' Association.

Since January there have been at least six reported cases, including an alleged vicious assault on a teacher of the Garlogie Primary and Junior High School in Manchester. The teacher reportedly remains bedridden.

The public defender also said he sympathises with the teaching staff of Ocho Rios High School, who walked off the job last Friday and on Monday, in protest because a teacher and the institution's principal were said to have been threatened by a student's relatives.

"The office stoutly condemns these assaults. They are quite unjustified and totally intolerable," Witter stated in a release.

Education Minister Andrew Holness told The Gleaner that he would be writing to the Com-missioner of Police, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin and Minister of National Security, Derrick Smith, for the incident at Ocho Rios High to be thoroughly investigated.

"If charges are to be made, such charges are to be pursued vigorously," said Holness.

"I have to focus on making an example out of those persons. Parents have an important responsibility to set proper examples for their children."

The public defender has, however, called on the society to rally in support of teachers who are bearing the brunt of this latest breakout of lawlessness.