[2025] UKUT 029 (AAC)

The appellant was born in November 1989 and was aged 33 at the time of the incident (“the hair incident”) that led DBS to make the barring decision in her case. She had been employed as an early years practitioner at a pre-school for two months when she was dismissed on 23 June 2023 as a result of the incident. She had previously worked as a teaching assistant at a school for four years with no safeguarding concerns raised. The pre-school referred her to DBS.

The pre-school provided DBS with the evidence it had obtained as part of its internal disciplinary investigation, together with certain further information in answer to the standard questions in the referral form.

The pre-school described the appellant’s role as being to care for children aged 0-5 years, supporting their physical and emotional wellbeing (including hygiene/nappy-changing) and supervising children during their play and scaffolding their learning.

The pre-school included eight anonymous witness statements that had been considered as part of the disciplinary investigation. In summary, the witnesses gave the following evidence about events of 14 June 2023:

At 4.48pm on 14 June 2023, the appellant emailed Witness LC as follows (sic):

I wanted to sincerely say I didn’t mean any harm at all and I appreciate and respect that the following procedure needs to take place.

I can honestly say that I would never hurt or harm a child and did not inflict harm to the young person whom made the allegation however I take full responsibility and acknowledge my error.

I’m deeply sorry and really hope to have a second chance as I honestly didn’t mean any harm at all.

I’m so so sorry.

The pre-school contacted the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) and, following a meeting with the LADO, invited the appellant to a disciplinary meeting on 22 June 2023. The appellant was provided with the anonymous staff statements in advance of that meeting. She did not attend the meeting.

Following that meeting, the pre-school decided to dismiss the appellant on notice and she was informed of that by letter of 23 June 2023. The pre-school then referred the appellant to DBS. In the referral, the pre-school identified the discussion between Witness LC, Witness LBD and the appellant earlier in the day on 14 June as being “previous misconduct, disciplinary action or complaints”. The pre-school categorised the hair incident as harm or risk of harm to a child and added the information that Child A was generally “very shy” and that he “came in the next day very very quiet but came out of himself when he saw [the appellant] was not present but later flinched when a member of the team tried to touch his head as he had toothpaste in it”.

DBS sent the appellant an early warning letter on 22 July 2023 and a ‘minded to bar’ letter on 20 November 2023. The appellant made representations in response to that letter on 20 December 2023. In her representations, the appellant denied pulling Child A’s hair. She said that the evidence of this consisted solely of the unreliable testimony of a four-year-old and “hearsay” evidence in the statements of staff. She questioned why there was no CCTV evidence as this would show that she did not interact inappropriately with a child. She complained that the witness statements used had been anonymous and that that this was not fair to her as she did not know who had given evidence and there could have been collusion. She set out detailed criticisms of the statements, noting in particular what she said was an inconsistency about whether Child A had has hat on or off when he came into the classroom after the hair incident. Regarding the evidence of Witnesses EB and LC about her meeting with them on the day, she denied that the conversation had gone into detail and “I certainly did not indicate that I had pulled or tugged a child’s hair and did not give a demonstration of this”. She denied speaking to Witness KN at all. She closed her representations by stating “Someone within the school decided to orchestrate a campaign against me and the school endorsed that campaign presumably because I had been critical, albeit in a measured and constructive way, about some aspects of the school’s organisation”.

The appellant also in her representations stated that she had “enjoyed a career in early years education spanning 6 years so far and have received positive references from all my previous employers”, including for work she did with children with additional physical, social, emotional and mental health issues.