Headteacher awarded over £100,000 after being unfairly sacked and accused of assault for tapping toddler son’s hand
2 July 2024, 10:32 | Updated: 2 July 2024, 18:59
A primary school headteacher who was sacked from her role after being accused of assault for tapping her son’s hand has been awarded more than £100,000.
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Shelly-Ann Malabver-Goulbourne, 46, tapped her three-year-old son’s hand to get his attention one evening in January 2022 as she was trying to stop him from playing with a bottle of hand sanitiser.
She had been working late in the office, with her son and 11-year-old daughter with her who were pupils at the school and were waiting to be taken home.
Ms Malabver-Goulbourne had been trying to stop her son from playing with the bottle of hand sanitiser after he had squirted some liquid on the floor.
She used two fingers to attract his attention and stop him from injuring himself, an employment tribunal heard.
Two weeks earlier, he had ended up with sanitiser in his eye after playing with a bottle.
The incident was witnessed by the teacher in charge of child safety, Ms Bhagwandas, who accused Ms Malabver-Goulbourne of hurting her son and filed an official complaint.
Ms Bhagwandas told the head teacher that she should not have hurt her son and spoken to him instead.
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The mother replied that she had not hurt her son and had just tapped him with two fingers to get his attention.
However, Ms Bhagwandas was reportedly ‘unhappy’ with the response and completed a ‘cause for concern’ form to report a ‘safeguarding incident’.
Ms Malabver-Goulbourne, who was the headteacher of Northwold Primary School in Hackney, was later suspended from her role, a disciplinary investigation was launched and the police were called in.
Despite the police ruling that her actions were “reasonable chastisement” by a parent, in May 2022 Ms Malabver-Goulbourne was sacked by Arbor Academy Trust for gross misconduct.
She was told: “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.”
She joined the trust as a teacher in 2005 and was promoted to headteacher in 2017.
Ms Malabver-Goulbourne told the investigation that her son had not cried from being tapped on his hand but rather started “whining because she took the bottle away from him”.
But now an employment judge has concluded that there was no evidence the former headteacher had committed “physical chastitsement or an assault” and ruled her dismissal unfair.
She was awarded £102,328 in compensation over the unfair dismissal.
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.”
She added: “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.”
