Teacher corrects hard lesson

JACINTA CAMPBELL, a teacher at Atherley School, an independent school for girls in Southampton, recently won pounds 2,350 compensation from a company after her union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, took up her case.

Mrs Campbell, aged 43, said: ''I had taken 12 years out to bring up three sons and recently returned to teaching. About two years ago I decided I needed a pension. Coincidentally, my husband Mike was talking to a salesman from Life Association of Scotland about increasing his life insurance.

'The guy seemed quite straight and persuaded me that my money would be better off in a private pension. He talked a lot of pension-speak and it was difficult sometimes to get him out of the house.

'I eventually started a pension in July 1992, paying about pounds 60 a month. A few months later, the union held a meeting in my school to discuss pensions and the person who spoke to us told me that I may have been misadvised.'

It took the union 15 months of argument with Britannia Life, which had by then taken over Life Association of Scotland, before Mrs Campbell was reinstated into the teachers' occupational scheme.

(Photograph omitted)