Headteacher jailed for attacking his deputy over ‘sexual jealousy’
A headteacher who attacked his deputy with a wrench at school due to “overwhelming sexual jealousy” has been jailed.
Anthony John Felton previously pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent to Richard Pyke, 51.
Felton armed himself with the tool and sought out his colleague – attacking him from behind.
He believed Mr Pyke had slept with another teacher, with whom he had recently been in a relationship.
Anthony Felton. Pic: PA
Felton was sentenced to 28 months in prison at Swansea Crown Court on Friday.
The 54-year-old had been warned by the judge at his plea hearing that “only a prison sentence” could be justified.
He was also given a restraining order.
After the incident at St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Comprehensive School in Aberavon, Neath Port Talbot, on 5 March this year, Felton threw the wrench away and left the school premises in his car.
He then sent an email to his staff, apologising “for the problems and distress his actions were likely to cause”.
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Sentencing Felton, Judge Paul Thomas KC said an attack by a head on their deputy was “I suspect, entirely without precedent” and was the result of “overwhelming sexual jealousy”.
“That a headmaster of a school should take and use a weapon to try to badly injure their deputy, is I suspect, entirely without precedent,” he said.
“You are more than intelligent enough to realise when you plotted this bizarre attack that the impact and ramifications would be immense and far-reaching.”
The judge said the attack “was in effect an ambush,” with Mr Pyke believing his attacker to be his friend.
While John Hipkin KC, for the defence, said Felton had recently suffered due to the death of his mother and a cancer diagnosis, the judge argued his actions were due to jealousy.
He said: “Ultimately, the trigger for your act of extreme violence was of your own doing, the overwhelming sexual jealousy arising from an adulterous affair and the uncontrollable rage it created in you.”
Felton was appointed headteacher in September 2023, according to an annual report from the governing body.
Following the incident, police said Mr Pyke had been discharged from hospital after suffering minor injuries.
Abul Hussain, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Anthony Felton struck a defenceless man repeatedly to the head with a metal weapon, demonstrating he had an intent to cause his victim really serious harm.
“The level of unprovoked violence, from a professional in the workplace, was shocking.
“Too often we see attacks of this nature result in life-changing injuries or fatal consequences, and thankfully, that was not the result in this case.”
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
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In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
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Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
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