Hackney head teacher wins £100,000 after being unfairly sacked for tapping son’s hand

A London primary school head teacher unfairly sacked after tapping her own son’s hand to stop him playing with a bottle of hand sanitiser has been awarded more than £100,000.

Shelly-Ann Malabver-Goulbourne was suspended and subjected to a police investigation after a colleague reported her for allegedly hurting her son unnecessarily while working late in her office.

But the mother, who was head of the Northwold Primary School in Hackney, has now won £102,328 in compensation after an employment judge found all she had done was tap the three-year-old with two fingers to get his attention and stop him from injuring himself with the substance.

The tribunal heard how she was working late in her office after a meeting with fellow teacher Samantha Bhagwandas, who was the designated lead for safeguarding, in January 2022.

The head’s three-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter, both pupils at the school, were in her office with her waiting to be taken home.

Ms Malabver-Goulbourne had been trying to stop her three-year-old from playing with a bottle of hand sanitiser after he had squirted some of the liquid on the floor.

Two weeks earlier, the boy had ended up with sanitiser in his eye after playing with a bottle.

After tapping his hand, she was accused of hurting her son by the other teacher, who filed an official complaint, which led to the 46-year-old being suspended and the police called.

Despite the police ruling that her actions were “reasonable chastisement” by a parent, she was sacked by Arbor Academy Trust, where she had joined in 2005 and worked as a head since 2017.

She told the investigation by the school trust that her son had not cried from her tapping the top of his hand but started “whining because she took the bottle away from him”.

Upholding the head teacher’s claim of unfair dismissal, employment judge Julia Jones said Ms Malabver-Goulbourne’s physical contact with her son came within the school’s code of conduct and could not be considered “unnecessary physical contact”.

Her son was “engaging in an activity that could have caused him harm”, and there was “no evidence that she had committed physical chastisement or an assault”, the judge added.