The parents of two pupils from St Bede’s College in Christchurch have been granted a High Court injunction allowing their sons to compete with the school’s Maadi Cup rowing team after they breached Auckland Airport security.
The parents’ lawyer, Andrew Marsh, said a temporary injunction allows the boys to participate in the competition “while we sort out whether the school was right or wrong”.
St Bede’s College rector Justin Boyle said he decided the boys, aged 16 and 17, were in breach of the school’s code of conduct and banned them from competing at the regatta, which started on Monday.
The boys, Jack Bell and Jordan Kennedy, were given formal warnings by police and the Aviation Security Service [AVSEC] after they jumped on a baggage conveyor at Auckland Airport on Friday.
The boys rode the carousel through the rubber curtains and into a restricted baggage area.
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the pair were spotted “instantly” by a Jetstar ramp agent.
The Jetstar rep called his supervisor who, in turn, involved AVSEC.
“The boys apologised immediately and said they did it for fun,” the CAA spokesman said.
“We were satisfied no breach of the sterile area occurred as the boys were spotted by Jetstar staff from the moment they emerged airside, after which they were escorted out of the airside baggage area to landside, almost immediately.”
“We do understand that students travelling as a group can get quite excited and have a lot of nervous energy, but they must understand that in airport environments there is zero tolerance for games or pranks and we would discourage any further instances of this type of behaviour.”
Hastings lawyer Jol Bates, who won a recent court case against St John’s College for suspending pupil Lucan Battison for refusing to cut his long hair, expected the parents’ lawyers to attack the process undertaken by St Bede’s.
“It will be a pretty hard call to overturn a decision on the merits of that nature where the pupils haven’t been suspended from an education, rather they have lost benefits.
“These cases are always process driven . . . I imagine there will be an argument there wasn’t a fair hearing of the issue and secondly that the decision was unreasonable, although that’s always going to be a more difficult argument.”
Source
- Stuff.co.nz
- New Zealand Herald
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