A VILLAGE school headteacher is to appear in court accused of assaulting eight pupils, police said yesterday.

Elizabeth Carey, 51, was suspended in October from her post at the rural ten-pupil Milfield School, in Wooler, Northumberland, amid allegations that she had assaulted nearly all the children.

Northumbria Police confirmed yesterday that she hadbeen summoned to appear before magistrates in connection with nine alleged assaults involving eight children.

Two of the alleged assaults relate to one child.

A Northumbria Police spokeswoman said: "She has been reported for summons at Berwick Magistrates' Court at a date yet to be fixed."

Carey, of Ashington, Northumberland, has been at the school, which caters for children aged from four to nine, for six years.

The school, 30 miles north of her Ashington home, is being run by another teacher in her absence.

National Union of Teachers regional secretary Terry Buckler said: "Elizabeth Carey has categorically denied all of the allegations.