A PRIMARY school headteacher is facing two charges of threatening behaviour and is due to appear in court later this month.Nicholas Rudman, 39, the head at Eight Ash Green and Aldham Primary School near Colchester, is accused of threatening a man in Sudbury, where he lives.

A PRIMARY school headteacher is facing two charges of threatening behaviour and is due to appear in court later this month.

Nicholas Rudman, 39, the head at Eight Ash Green and Aldham Primary School near Colchester, is accused of threatening a man in Sudbury, where he lives.

Rudman, of Clermont Avenue, is charged with putting James Nichol in fear or provocation of violence by using threatening or abusive words or behaviour towards him.

He has not yet entered a plea to either charge, although the case was listed yesterday at St Edmundsbury Magistrates Court.

Rudman did not attend the hearing and it was adjourned until Wednesday February 27 to go before Sudbury Magistrates.

The offences are alleged to have taken place on July 31 last year – at Clermont Avenue – and on November 3 at Richard Burn Way, also in Sudbury.

Last night Rudman said: "It was an incredible shock to find out that someone had made this allegation against me.

"I have never in my life acted in a way which is threatening to anyone else and I hope that everyone that knows me will agree I am a caring, compassionate person, entirely devoted to my job and my family."

But the chairman of governors at the Eight Ash Green school, Judith Rose, said: "Obviously we are concerned but we have to go into it in more detail and find out what's happening."

A spokesperson for Essex County Council, the Local Education Authority, said: "We are very concerned about an allegation of this nature against an Essex headteacher. It is, though, just an allegation at this stage.

"We will be talking to the Governing Body about a possible investigation into this affair."

Rudman became headteacher at the Eight Ash Green and Aldham Primary School last month.

The 135-pupil, six-class school had been running with an acting head for the 12 months leading up to his appointment.

Rudman was previously head of St Peter's school in West Hanningfield and while he was there it was classified among the best 10 primaries in the country.