Headteacher at Port Talbot school pleads guilty to GBH with intent

A head teacher has pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm with intent after attacking his deputy at a secondary school.

Anthony John Felton, known as John, was arrested following an incident at St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Comprehensive in Aberavon, Neath Port Talbot, on 5 March.

Richard Pyke, 51, was treated for minor injuries in hospital following the attack.

Felton, 54, of Penyrheol Road, Gorseinon, Swansea, has been remanded in custody, and will be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on 25 April.

Felton, who was listed in a recent prospectus as the school’s headteacher, appeared at Swansea Crown Court on Monday via video link.

Details of the offence and the circumstances surrounding it were not revealed but the court heard there was a “unique background” to the incident.

In a short hearing, Felton spoke to confirm his name and plead guilty to a charge of grievous bodily harm with intent.

John Hipkin KC, defending, said that “on any view”, the incident in which his client had been involved had led to “a spectacular fall from grace”.

He told the court Felton inflicted “a number of blows” to Mr Pyke, which had all been caught on CCTV.

Judge Paul Thomas KC warned Felton a prison sentence was “inevitable”, as the offence was “so serious”.

“In the context of where and how this offence was committed, and in particular, bearing in mind the propensity of violence in schools perpetrated by pupils, it seems to me that my public duty require that only a prison sentence can be passed here,” the judge told Mr Hipkin.