The Supreme Court is examining cases of "crime" in the school

The case that will now be decided in the Supreme Court is about a teacher being reported for violation after taking a “criminal offense” and moving a student. The student had refused to get out of a couch that stood in the middle of a passage in a school restroom. The student has neuropsychiatric diagnoses and the school had therefore written an action plan describing that the student would be met by a low-impact approach. But the teacher did not know the plan of action.

Despite the fact that the teacher who carried out the "wrestling grip" did not know about the action plan, Beo believes that the student should be treated differently. Beo now demands that the principal of the school, a municipality in Western Sweden, pay SEK 10,000 in compensation to the student for abusive treatment. This claim has previously been rejected by both district court and court.

"The Supreme Court only gives trial permission if the legal situation is unclear on issues where guidance is needed on how to apply the law text," says Elin Dalenius, justice secretary at the Supreme Court.

The teacher, who has a background in wrestling, believes that the student did not obey repeated requests that they get up from the couch that blocked the passage in the school so that the teacher could move the furniture back to its place and come by. The teacher says that he did not use any violence against the pupil, but that the so-called "wrestler grip", a variant of arm and head coupling, was the most natural way to get the pupil off the couch and could not have caused the pupil any pain.

The student, in turn, believes that the teacher's grip made him unable to breathe and that the student's neck was bent, which led to the student getting sore and that it narrowed to the neck.

According to previous practice, teachers have certain opportunities to carry out "bodily intervention against a student", even in the case of non-emergency or emergency situations. However, Beo believes that there is no practice in such interventions against students with neuropsychiatric diagnoses. Something that the Supreme Court seems to have taken into account when granting a trial permit.

- What is happening now is for the parties to decide which evidence to invoke in the case, and then HD will collect the evidence and then decide the case. The case has a preliminary plan to be decided sometime between week seven and ten, 2020, says Elin Dalenius, justice secretary at the Supreme Court.