A primary school headmistress who was sacked and accused of assault after tapping her own toddler's hand while he played with a bottle of hand sanitiser has been awarded more than £100,000. Shelly-Ann Malabver-Goulbourne was trying to get her three-year-old to stop playing with the bottle in her office when she used two fingers to attract his attention, an employment tribunal heard.
Wow, usually, this wouldn't even be worth mentioning, let alone calling the police over. The police, Ambush? Yes indeed, Reader...
Despite the police ruling that her actions were 'reasonable chastisement' by a parent, Ms Malabver-Goulbourne, 46, was found guilty of gross misconduct and sacked.Yet an employment judge concluded there was no evidence that she had committed 'physical chastisement or an assault' and ruled her dismissal unfair.
So who instigated this, and has lost the school £10k as a result?
'It was around 6.20pm and [Ms Malabver-Goulbourne] was packing up her things to go home after having a meeting with Ms Bhagwandas, the designated lead for safeguarding,' the hearing was told.
Ah! Well, if you sack a teacher for tapping a child on the hand, what do you do to someone who lies about a colleague's actions and files a false report, I wonder?
