What made her think she could get away with it?

A headmistress has been banned from running other schools after appointing her twin as an assistant head on a salary of £80,000. The General Teaching Council said that Jean Else, 57, who was made a Dame in 2001 for her work in turning around Whalley Range Comprehensive, Manchester, had lowered the standards of the profession.

Her sister, Maureen Rochford, joined the school as a £10,000-a-year clerical assistant but was promoted and received ex-gratia payments. Dame Jean was suspended after an Audit Commission report found that she had cashed cheques against school funds and did not follow Manchester City Council procedures when awarding pay rises. She also hired former pupils, sometimes without interview.

In this lady's defence it should be pointed out that she turned a terrible school around, perhaps by using unorthodox methods and certainly by force of her personality, but what is so surprising is that someone with obvious intelligence would think that rules could be bent or circumvented and that there would be no complaints of nepotism. It must be something to do with becoming used to the exercise of complete power in a closed environment, and perhaps thinking that as long as the results got better - and they did - no one would mind very much. Very deluded, very sad and very stupid. But then intelligence and stupidity - or rather a lack of common sense - are very happy and frequent bedfellows.