More than £100,000 has been granted to the headmistress of a primary school who was fired and charged with assault after tapping her own toddler’s hand as he was playing with a bottle of hand sanitizer.
An employment tribunal was told that Shelly-Ann Malabver-Goulbourne used two fingers to force her three-year-old to stop playing with the bottle in her workplace.
The child safety coordinator saw the incident and reported it to the authorities, accusing the teacher of harming her kid. Police were dispatched to the scene.
Despite the police finding that Ms. Malabver-Goulbourne, 46, disciplined “reasonably” as parent, she was found guilty of gross misconduct and fired.
However, an employment tribunal declared her dismissal unjust since there was insufficient evidence to support claim of “physical chastisement or assault.”
She now gets £102,328 in compensation after suing for an unjust dismissal.
A teacher for “many years,” Ms Malabver-Goulbourne was the head of Northwold Primary School in Hackney, east London which is run by the Arbor Academy Trust.
She began working there as a teacher in 2005 and was elevated to the position of head of school in 2017.
The tribunal heard that Ms. Malabver-Goulbourne was working late in her office on January 17, 2022, when the incident that resulted in her dismissal occurred.
It was approximately 6:20 p.m., “Ms. Malabver-Goulbourne” was packing up her belongings to head home following a meeting with Ms. Bhagwandas, the designated lead for safeguarding.
Her two children she had with her were waiting for her to take them home. Her 11-year-old daughter was in the office with her youngest kid, her 3-year-old son J.
‘J took up a bottle of hand sanitiser which was on a table. [Her] daughter told her that he had squirted some to the floor. [Ms Malabver-Goulbourne] took the sanitiser out of his hand.’
Employment Judge Julia Jones said: ‘I find it likely that she then bent down to his level to speak to him about why he should not be playing with hand sanitiser.
‘When she did so he turned his face away from her and she tapped him with two fingers on the back of his hand to get his attention, so that he would look at her to hear what she was saying.’
Two weeks earlier the toddler had got hand sanitiser in his eye, the tribunal was told.
‘It was with the knowledge of that earlier experience that [Ms Malabver-Goulbourne] wanted to speak to him again to ensure that he understood that hand sanitiser was not a toy that he should be playing with.’
Ms Bhagwandas then told the head teacher that she should not have hurt her son and that she should have spoken to him instead.
Ms Malabver-Goulbourne replied that she had not hurt her son as all she had done was tap him with two fingers to get his attention.
However, Ms Bhagwandas was ‘unhappy’ with her response and completed a ’cause for concern’ form to report a ‘safeguarding incident’.
‘In it she reported that she had witnessed [Ms Malabver-Goulbourne] smack J on the hand,’ the tribunal heard.
‘She also stated that before doing so, [she] had told J that she was going to smack him and expressed disregard for the Ms Bhagwandas’ presence in the office.
‘Ms Bhagwandas reported that the child had been crying and that she had pacified him.’
Her complaint led to Ms Malabver-Goulbourne being suspended, a disciplinary investigation launched and the local authority and police being called.
The tribunal was told that neither the council nor the police – who interviewed all of the head teacher’s children – thought further action necessary with officers concluding what she had done was ‘reasonable chastisement’.
‘[The officer] considered that physical chastisement could be appropriate because the child was in possession of a chemical, which could have caused irritation to his eyes, and he accepted [his mother’s] explanation that her response was to get him out of harm’s way,’ the tribunal heard.
However, the trust continued its investigation into whether Ms Malabver-Goulbourne ‘assaulted a pupil/child whilst in a position of trust and on school premises’.
When interviewed, Ms Bhagwandas accused the head teacher of inflicting pain on a child, that she was shocked at what happened and considered it a form of corporal punishment.
In her self-defense, Ms. Malabver-Goulbourne stated that her actions were intended to draw her son’s attention rather than to do him harm.
‘[She said that] when explaining inappropriate behaviours to her child she will say ‘this is wrong we don’t do that’ and explain why or show him the appropriate way to behave,’ the tribunal heard.
‘She explained that this is what she did when her son J took up the hand sanitiser the first time at home.
‘When it happened again in school, she reminded him about the first encounter with the sanitiser and that it had got into his eyes. [She said] that she used ‘tapping’ on J’s wrist to get his attention.
‘She described this action as meaning, ‘Look at me when I am talking to you, focus on me and what I am saying’ as he looked away when she was talking to him.
She said] that her son had not cried from her tapping the top of his hand, he started whining because she took the bottle away from him. She had not done it in anger or as a punishment.
‘She tapped him on the top of his hand to get his attention to explain to him the danger of playing with hand sanitiser as she was worried about what could happen to him. She was clear that she had not smacked him.’
The trust had fired Ms. Malabver-Goulbourne in May 2022 due to serious misconduct.
‘The Trust expressly forbids any physical chastisement or contact of any kind,’ she was told. ‘Therefore, whether a tap or otherwise, this was unnecessary physical contact with a pupil, which constitutes an assault, and therefore a breach of policies and statutory guidance.’
However, EJ Jones said that the school’s code of conduct does not prohibit all physical contact between pupils and teachers and pointed out that as a parent of pupils that would be a difficult rule for the head teacher to abide by.
Upholding her claim for unfair dismissal, EJ Jones said: ‘It is this Tribunal’s judgement that [the Trust] had sufficient evidence…that she was trying to prevent injury to her child and addressing his behaviour.
‘There was no evidence that she had committed physical chastisement or an assault.’
Credit: mailonline
