A Scottish teachers' union is threatening to sue pupils who make malicious allegations against school staff.

The warning against false accusations from pupils was given at the annual conference of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) in Scotland.

Delegates, meeting in Seamill in Ayrshire, unanimously supported a motion calling on the union to pursue a test case against a pupil or parent who was found to have made false allegations against a teacher.

Teachers are angry about their vulnerability to malicious claims by parents or pupils

One delegate said it was time for teachers to face down troublemaking pupils, or - as he put it - to "sue the pants off these despicable little people".

The NASUWT also became the latest union to raise the spectre of industrial action over pay. Delegates unanimously backed calls to resist any increase in teachers' 35-hour working week and to fight for a return to professional salary levels.

The union's national executive member in Scotland, Tino Ferri, called on the local authorities to pay up or face the possibility of industrial action.

The NASUWT is the only Scottish union which wants to abolish the current pay talks with local authorities in favour of an independent pay review body.