Children who allege falsely that teachers have abused them are often not punished, even when their lies have ruined the career of their victim, teachers said yesterday.

In some cases the parents are not even told of their child’s malicious allegations, because head teachers and local authorities are keen to protect their reputation.

Bill Williams, from Rochdale, told delegates at the annual conference of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers in Belfast yesterday that such allegations were “not malicious, or vexatious” but “downright evil”.

He described how one dedicated deputy head teacher had left the profession and moved out of the country after an unfounded claim that he had sexually abused a pupil. “I held his hand when he was crying on the day when he had to tell his two daughters why he was off school. I was there when he had to tell his 88-year-old father why he was off school,” he said.

Michael Wilson, a teacher from Nottingham, said: “What is appalling is what happens after the allegation has been dismissed. The accuser will be back as if nothing had happened.”

Chris Keats, the union’s general secretary, said that in a recent case in Derbyshire, in which a pupil had made a false allegation against a teacher, the head teacher had taken no action against the pupil and had not told the child’s parents.

Delegates backed overwhelmingly a motion that authorised the union to ballot members in a school to refuse to teach a pupil if that pupil had not been expelled after making a “serious malicious, vexatious or false accusation against a member of staff”.

The union is also preparing to challenge Gordon Brown over his plans to limit pay rises in the public sector to 2 per cent. Delegates said that they were not prepared to accept what would effectively be a pay cut, with inflation currently at more than 4 per cent.

They authorised the union to ballot members to assess the level of support for possible industrial action if such a pay offer is proposed.

Teachers’ pay has risen by 18 per cent in real terms since Labour came to power in 1997, with some starting salaries now at about £20,000.

“Already we are seeing the threat of erosion. It is looming like some overhanging cliff. Two per cent is not enough. It won’t do. It won’t work and we won’t have it,” Sue Rogers, a member of the union’s national executive, said.

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