THE
P RTAL
April 2019
Page 7
Here am I Lord
T he P ortal talks to Michael Batten JP
M ichael is
an urbane, and warm, East End boy. Tall,
fit, resolute and proper; as he grew up he moved into
Essex. He now lives as far as you can live, in Essex without
falling into Suffolk! An Ordinariate member who attends the
Colchester Group, he was, for thirty years, a school teacher,
head of department and School Head in two Comprehensive
Schools. Now he serves mass at the Colchester Ordinariate
Group and is his parish MC.
Many will recognise him as one of the servers at the
Ordinariate Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham.
But Michael has a rather more interesting side to him.
We were anxious to hear all about his life after school
teaching.
Settled in his beautiful apartment, with a lovely cup
of tea, he told us the whole story. “After thirty-two years
I came out of schools and worked as a consultant and
adviser on a self-employed basis, but sub-contracted
to a company that had two major contracts from the
government, to provide a service which was needed in
schools”.
political pressures all the time. I think in many ways
teachers have had a lot of what they used to do taken
away from them. You don’t have time to do it now. So
I probably left about the right time for me.
“The role of teachers has changed. Society seems
to dump every problem on to schools and teachers.
This knife crime: politicians have blamed schools for
excluding too many pupils. You listen to all the reasons
politicians put forward, but you very rarely hear the
word parent mentioned!”
We asked what Michael is doing now. He warmed
“While I was doing this, I picked up other work on to his subject. “I’m what’s known under the Mental
the back of the fact I had been a magistrate for many Health Act as an Associate Hospital Manager. Patients
years and learned a lot of skills from that. Gradually who are suffering various mental health disorders
the work I was able to build became more of my life can be detained against their will in psychiatric
than the work I was doing in education. It took over”. units. It is called being sectioned. Or they can be in
the community on what are called Treatment Orders
“From my fifties to my seventies I sat on Employment which is where they are allowed out of hospital and live
Tribunals. This was usually about a week a month. in the community but they have to follow requirements
Then I started doing Mental Health Act Appeals, which of their treatment and supervisors.
I still do. I also sat on appeal panels for OFQUAL (The
This is restricting people’s freedom. So patients
Office of Qualifications Regulator) and hearings for
have the right to appeal against detention. Even if
the General Medical Council.
they don’t appeal, they have to be regularly reviewed
At seventy I was required to retire from the bench independently. There are two ways of doing that,
having done over forty-one years, and also from the through the Mental Health Review Tribunal or they
tribunal bench. I am still able to do appeals for the can appeal to the hospital managers. They are the
GMC, which I do a few times a year. But the main directors of the trust that operates the hospital, but
thing I still do now is sitting on and chairing what what the act allows because obviously the directors
are called Managers Hearings under the Mental don’t really want to be spending their time doing
Health Act.”
these hearings. They are allowed to appoint substitutes
which are Associate Hospital Managers. That is people
We wondered if Mike enjoyed teaching. He replied, like me who are engaged to carry out that function.
“I enjoyed teaching. It has its down sides but also has
its ups. Managing schools was a challenge. I would say
“We sit as a panel of three and hear evidence. If for
towards the end I wasn’t enjoying working in schools example a patient is under detention, they will appear,
because there wasn’t the fun element in it which there represented by a solicitor. We have reports in advance
was when I started. Its all the grind, inspections, and take live evidence by their psychiatrist, a nurse,