From across the pond comes a stupid story rich with buried ethics treasures.
Eleven-year-old Holli McCann was sent home from a week long school trip to the Isle of Wight (where Paul McCartney started vacationing when he turned 64) because she violated one of the rules of the trip: no chocolate. The Bromet (in Watford, Herts) Primary School’s headmistress, Yvonne Graves, discovered the infraction by surreptitiously reading a private letter that Holly had written to her mother. After perusing the incriminating missive,Graves ordered teachers to search Holli’s room, which they did with the diligence and thoroughness of the FBI looking for forensic evidence of a serial killing, even emptying her toiletry bag into the sink and pulling out the lining of her suitcase. It was all worthwhile, however, because they discovered the yummy but incriminating substance they sought.
After the smoking chocolate was discovered, the headmistress contacted Holly’s mother and told her to pick up her daughter immediately—she had been voted off the Isle. The mother begged Graves to reconsider, but was refused. She had to borrow money to make the 160-mile trip to pick up her daughter.
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