Teacher Elizabeth Davies sprayed air freshener on Asian children if they smelled of curry in the mornings, a disciplinary hearing was told yesterday.
Elizabeth Davies worked at Swansea's Hafod Primary School (pictured)
Mrs Davies is accused of ‘humiliating’ children aged between three and six by using the aerosol on them in her nursery class.
The 48-year-old was said to have told Bangladeshi children who smelled of onions or curry, ‘There is a waft coming in from paradise’ before blasting the air freshener.
Davies, who had 20 years’ experience, is also said to have sprayed pupils who broke wind, washed their hands with pine disinfectant and made them stand on newspaper if they wet themselves.
Her classroom assistant, Jan Islam, said: ‘Mrs Davies would say that we are not here to babysit the children and to call their parents. Pupils would be told to stand on newspaper until their parents arrive to collect them.’
Davies worked at Swansea’s Hafod Primary School, where more than half the 260 children were from a Bangladeshi background.
She was sacked from her £34,000-a-year job over ‘child protection concerns’ in April last year. She had been suspended on full pay for 18 months while the case was investigated.
Yesterday, she denied five charges at a General Teaching Council hearing and could be struck off.
Mrs Islam told the hearing: ‘Mrs Davies would wash the children’s hands in a bowl containing pine disinfectant. She would spray air freshener almost daily. Children would sit on the carpet. If they had broken wind she would stand above them and spray air freshener at them.’
Asked what harm air freshener could cause to young children, headteacher Rachel Webb told the hearing: ‘It is demeaning, dangerous and embarrassing for a child. It could cause serious damage to a child’s health.’
The case continues.
Tariq Tahir - 14th February, 2011
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