Read Online Teacher's Dead by Benjamin Zephaniah - Free Book Online

when the silence was broken by a disturbance outside the courtroom. A woman was screaming and shouting at the top of her voice.
    ‘Leave me alone! Why don’t you believe me? I have a right to be in there, he’s my son. He’s my son. If my son’s in court I have the right to be there. Now leave me alone.’
    Lionel continued to stare straight ahead, but Ramzi looked disturbed. He began to look towards the direction of the shouting. Suddenly the door flew open and the two men who had brought me and Mrs Joseph in were chasing after a woman who was determined to sit in the court. She pointed to Ramzi.
    ‘This is my son. You people don’t know anything. He is innocent, and he is mine, and I have the right to be here.’ She pointed to a man and a woman who weresitting behind Ramzi. ‘You leave him alone – you keep your hands off my child. All this is your fault. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t be here if you’d taken care of him. He’s mine, my baby, mine.’
    The couple remained motionless, we all remained motionless, all except for the two court staff who began trying to reason with her, but she just shouted above them.
    One of the male judges spoke to the staff.
    ‘Let me hear her speak.’
    They stopped shouting at her, she stopped screaming, and the judge continued.
    ‘You do realise that I could have you charged with contempt of court. What do you have to say for yourself?
    The woman pointed to Ramzi. ‘That’s my son, which means I have the right to be here.’
    The judge turned to Ramzi. ‘Is this your mother?’
    Ramzi shook his head.
    ‘Could you speak, please?’
    ‘No,’ Ramzi said, looking straight at the judge.
    ‘Where are your parents?’ asked the judge.
    Ramzi lifted his shoulders. The judges whispered to each other.
    ‘OK. Where are your foster parents, or your guardians?’ asked the judge.
    Ramzi pointed to the couple. ‘They are my foster parents.’
    ‘But where are your biological parents?’ asked the judge.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Ramzi. ‘I don’t know who my parents are.’
    The woman screamed, ‘How can you say that? Forget all them fancy words you know, I’m your mother, I’m the only one that cares about you. What are they doing to you? These people don’t care about you, I care about you.’
    ‘Silence,’ shouted the judge. He then looked towards the couple. ‘Do you know this person?’
    The man replied, ‘We have seen her before. She appears sometimes and makes these outrageous claims, and then she disappears. We understand that she has some mental health issues.’
    The woman then charged towards the couple but was held back by the two men.
    ‘Mental health issues!’ she shouted. ‘I’ll give you mental heath issues. You’re all mental, the lot of you. Give me my son. Come on, son, we’re going home.’
    ‘OK,’ said the judge. ‘I want you to leave this courtroom now. If you have parental claims on this boy you must go through the proper channels. This may be the place but this is not the time.’
    The woman began to cry. ‘He’s mine, you can’t have him. He’s mine, and you are all devils. You’re the ones with the mental health issues. Yeah. This is no court, this is a joke.’
    ‘Remove her from the court, please,’ said the female judge.
    The two men then took her arms and held her in some fancy jujitsu arm locks and led her out. She was still shouting, and we could hear her shouting all the way out of the building.
    ‘Right,’ said the female judge, ‘let’s get on with the business in hand. ‘Can the legal representatives of the juveniles both stand?’
    Two young men stood up. The judge continued.
    ‘I take it that court procedure has been explained to your clients?’
    They both said, ‘Yes.’
    ‘And you are both happy with their guilty pleas?
    One of them replied, ‘We are not happy with them, and we have tried to talk to them as much as we could. We have given them as much advice as legally