Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe SOUTH SHIELDS, England, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Officials at a British school apologized for a homework lesson that had 11-year-old students reading about a wife severing her husband's penis. Claire Mullane, head teacher at Mortimer Community College in South Shields, England, said the passage about the famous 1993 penis-severing case of John and Lorena Bobbitt in Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson was assigned as reading material by an English teacher who had not yet looked over the material. Advertisement "This was a mistake. A member of staff had asked the students to read the extract, but had not read it herself first," Mullane told The Shields Gazette. "She was supposed to have picked out a specific paragraph for the pupils to read rather than the whole extract. We in no way condone that sort of approach. However, it was an error," she said. The assignment had been criticized by parents who said the reading was filled with "filthy innuendos." Read More Penis-shaped football field graffiti cancels games NZ firm recalls gummy candies with penis shapes Vancouver removes devil statue with erect penis Man raises $28,000 to have his 100-pound scrotum removed Alabama clinic: So...that penis amputation never happened