Head jailed over 120mph crash will keep his job

A headmaster jailed for causing a high-speed crash which left another motorist in a wheelchair will be allowed to keep his job.

Paul Davies, 51, was driving at up to 120mph in heavy rain in a Subaru Impreza covered with racing stickers before losing control on a bend and hitting another car head on.

Jailing him last month, Judge Stephen Hopkins described Davies as a "boy racer" and said he "needlessly destroyed" the life of the other driver, Kevin Palmer, for the foreseeable future.

Despite this, his primary school's disciplinary panel decided he was still fit to remain as head.

Davies could apply for early release from his 15-month sentence if he agrees to be tagged. It raises the prospect of a tagged criminal leading assemblies in front of 200 impressionable children.

Mr Palmer, 49, was appalled by the decision to allow a convicted criminal to run a primary school.

He said: "It's alarming. A headmaster with a tag. It must be a first. It's appalling. I don't understand how such a thing can happen because we put these people up on a pedestal, as an example to the children.

"Clearly this chap has been found guilty in the court. He's been sentenced to jail and he's now going to be in front of kids. I really don't understand it."

The father of two wants the General Teaching Council to hold its own disciplinary hearing.

Davies had denied dangerous driving on the A456 in South Wales in May last year.

After he was convicted at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court he was expected to lose his job as head of 200-pupil Cwmdare Primary School in Aberdare, South Wales.

But the school's disciplinary panel decided to keep the post open while Davies, of Cwmdare, served his sentence so he could return to the job.

A statement by Rhondda Cynon Taf Council and Alun Maddox, chairman of governors at the school, read: "The panel decided to allow Mr Davies to keep his post and he is expected to return after completing his sentence."