Carol Hill who lost her job after telling the parents of a seven-year-old girl that she had been tied to a fence and hit with a skipping rope is in line for compensation of only £49.99, it was disclosed last night.
Mrs Hill, 62, was dismissed from her post at Great Tey Primary School in Great Tey, Essex, in 2009 in a case which sparked a national outcry.
Last month an employment tribunal at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, found that the school had not carried out a “fair, proper and reasonable” investigation before dismissing her.
But yesterday the same panel ruled that she would have been sacked in any case for going public with her story, even if the correct dismissal procedures had been followed, and that she was therefore not entitled to compensation.
After discussions between lawyers for the two sides it emerged that Essex County Council has agreed to pay Mrs Hill a severance package of just £351.82 – including just over £300 in back pay and £49.99 in “compensation”.

But yesterday the same panel ruled that she would have been sacked in any case for going public with her story, even if the correct dismissal procedures had been followed, and that she was therefore not entitled to compensation.

this person had been dismissed for informing the parents
when i mean informing, this person asked after the welfare of the child involved, then found out that the school had not informed the parents of the incident that had happened

after this person was dismissed she went to the local press not while this person was still employed by the school
therefore i hope that an appeal is in the pipeline and the school involved gets taken to the cleaners ...

What you don’t want is Parents A going after Parents B. This happens, and for all we know there could be a situation which could be made worse by this. All we’re getting is the sob story of a dinner lady who broke protocol and got punished for it.

The employment tribunal which announced her victory will consider whether she should be compensated and reinstated at another hearing on Feb 2.
Carol Hill, 61, dragged four boys away after finding Chloe David tied to a chainlink fence in the playground at Great Tey Primary School in Essex in June 2009.
She lost the job she held for almost eight years after talking to Chloe's parents about the incident at a Beaver Scout evening. She assumed that they already knew.
Mrs Hill said she was "on cloud nine" after her claim was upheld by the panel in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
"This is the best new year news I could have," she said.

The controversy began when Deborah Crabb, the headmistress, wrote to Scott David, 35, and his wife Claire, 30, telling them their daughter was injured in a "skipping rope incident".
She failed to mention she had been tied up and whipped.

Mr and Mrs David were horrified when Mrs Hill told them how Chloe came to have rope burns on her wrists and whip marks on her legs.

The school faced accusations of a cover-up after it emerged the mother of one of the bullies was a school governor.

Mrs Hill, who earned £6.20 an hour, was suspended. She was later sacked at a hearing chaired by the school governors after it was alleged she spoke to a local paper.
The grandmother of five, who lives in Great Tey with her husband Ron, 65, claimed she was unfairly dismissed.

Speaking after yesterday's ruling Mrs Hill said: "I am delighted. I have always had the welfare of the children in my care at heart and I still miss working at the school. I've been devastated since I lost my job."
Mrs Hill said she would love to return to the school where she worked for an hour a day.

Chloe's parents said they were "delighted" with the outcome, which they hailed as a victory for "natural justice".
Mr David said Mrs Hill had been "made a scapegoat" by the school to cover up for the fact that Mrs Crabb had "not done her job properly". Describing the past 18 months as a "nightmare" for his family, he said: "Carol was treated very badly. The majority of people believe she did nothing wrong."
Mrs David said that when she spoke with Mrs Hill that evening "she did not realise we did not know all the facts. We should have been called to the school."
Chloe and her younger brother have been withdrawn from the school.

The school disputed Mrs Hill's claim for unfair dismissal, arguing that, by speaking to parents outside school, she was guilty of a breach of confidence and had brought the school into disrepute by talking to journalists about her case.
Mrs Crabb, 36, told the tribunal Chloe was "playing a game of prisoners and guards" and was not bullied. Mrs Hill took her case to the tribunal after an appeal against her sacking was turned down by the school governors and Essex county council in November, 2009.

The panel found the governors had not carried out a reasonable investigation into the allegations and that the disciplinary and appeal hearings were not fair.

A spokesman for Great Tey School and Essex county council said that it was wrong to claim that Mrs Hill had "won" because the panel had not decided on whether she would have been dismissed had its disciplinary and appeal procedures been reasonable.

Timeline
June 24, 2009: Dinner lady Carol Hill finds seven-year-old Chloe David tied to a fence and being whipped with a skipping rope in the playground of Great Tey Primary School in Essex.
Chloe is sent home with a letter informing her parents that she has been injured in a “skipping rope incident” but no mention was made of her having been tied up or whipped by other pupils.
That evening, Mrs Hill runs into Claire and Scott David at a Beaver Scout meeting and discovers that have not been given a full account of their daughter’s injury. She tells them what she saw.
June 25, 2009: Mr David demands to see a copy of the school’s official report on the incident, alerting Deborah Crabb, the headmistress, to the fact that he was informed by Mrs Hill.
July 2009 Mrs Crabb suspends Mrs Hill for breaching pupil confidentiality.
September 2009: Mrs Hill is sacked for gross misconduct by a disciplinary hearing chaired by school governors.
November 2009: Mrs Hill appeals to a panel of three school governors and representatives Essex County Council but her dismissal is upheld.
Ed Balls, then Schools Secretary, wrote to the chairman of the school’s governors, demanding an investigation into what he described as the school’s “totally inadequate” handling of the affair.
November 2010: Mrs Hill takes her appeal for unfair dismissal to an employment tribunal in Bury St Edmunds. The three-strong panel reserve judgement following a three-day hearing.
January 6, 2011: The employment tribunal rules that Mrs Hill was unfairly dismissed because the school did not conduct a reasonable investigation into the charges against her and the disciplinary and appeal hearings were unfair.
February 2, 2011: Tribunal will meet to consider whether Mrs Hill should be compensated or reinstated in her position.

the education system and the teachers within have become a law unto themselves

am still trying to find out who sat on the tribunal as im betting they have or have had teaching experience ...

point 1) That’s a pejorative and untrue statement comparable to a monumental Mexican Top Gear cock-up. You are directly attacking my parents and my other half with that statement. You should retract it and apologise. I know a lot of teachers outside of my immediate family, and I can say that none of them are operating in this fashion. There will be some in the profession who fail in this respect, but I know from my experience that the welfare of children is paramount, and a LOT of attention is paid in this respect. Parents, social services, the police (if necessary) etc. are kept informed if there are any problems.



point 2) Grinding an axe, perchance?

I suspect that the tribunal is made up of people who have no educational experience at all. While you are at it, check the status of the head teacher. In my experience, some head teachers are absent for a lot of the time as they are out doing support duties in other schools. This is something that they choose not to do, BTW, especially if the school, is successful. Some heads may be absent for 90% of the time if other duties take them away from the school, and they may not be fully aware of what is going on. The person to speak to in such situations would be the deputy head.

There is still a lot of information missing from that article - the details are somewhat sketchy. How did the dinner lady fully report the incident? A school will have a log book specifically for child protection. Such an incident should be written up. If she did not do this, why not? Citing ignorance of such a book is no excuse. If she did not log the incident, then it could through the natural process of Chinese Whispers end up appearing less of a problem than it could be.

She certainly did break protocol by speaking to the parents about it outside of school, and it was not her place to discuss the incident. There is the potential for more harm to be done by doing this.

point 1) no chance
i have no time for bureaucrats or management in any way shape or form
they have taken the coin then they will have to live with it ...

point 2) it cost me a lot of time, money, police and court time to have removed a headmistress and 2 governors from my local school when my youngest daughter was beaten up by several boys

the, so called, governors were the, so called, parents of two of the boys

my daughter remained in school they did not ...

So you tar the WHOLE profession because of one incident. That’s a very sad outlook you have there. Very sad.