Sarah Harris Mail.
A school dinner lady who told the parents of a seven-year-old girl that she had been viciously bullied in the playground has been sacked. Scott and Claire David were simply informed in a letter home that their daughter Chloe had been ‘hurt’ in an incident with a skipping rope. In fact, she had been tied to a fence, whipped by four boys, had to be dragged to safety and suffered burns to her wrists. But the attempted cover-up was exposed when Carol Hill – the dinner lady who saved her from further injury – bumped into Mr and Mrs David and told them what really happened. Mrs Hill, 60, was suspended after the incident in June and yesterday it emerged that she has been fired by a disciplinary tribunal for breaching pupil confidentiality at Great Tey Primary School, near Colchester, Essex. The decision has been condemned by the girl’s family, who were prevented from giving evidence on Mrs Hill’s behalf. Other parents at the school are considering withdrawing their children in protest. Friends say that Mrs Hill, from Great Tey, who has worked at the school for almost eight years, is ‘shocked and very disappointed’ but is planning to appeal. One said: ‘She thinks she’s been treated really shabbily but she insists that if she saw a child being bullied again she would definitely step in like she did.’ Her husband, Ron, said: ‘She’s not been eating and has been really down. I can’t describe how cross I am. I can’t believe it’s got this far. She’s done nothing wrong.’ Mrs Hill has previously told how another pupil alerted her to the bullying incident. She found Chloe bound up and terrified. She said: ‘She had eight knots around her wrists and had been whipped across the legs with a skipping rope. I took her back into the school, along with four boys who had been seen with her. Two admitted it.’ Mr and Mrs David say Chloe, who had rope burns to her wrists and whip marks on her legs, was sent home with an accident notification letter. They could not find out what exactly had happened as she was in shock and refused to talk about it. Later that evening, Mrs Hill was helping at a Beaver Scouts meeting and went over to Mrs David to say she was sorry about what happened. Speaking in July, she said: ‘As I was talking to her it became clear she did not know the whole story. I had to tell her because she then realised there was more to it.’ Mr and Mrs David have since withdrawn Chloe and their five-year-old son, Cameron, from the school. They say that if Mrs Hill had not told them, they would never have been alerted to what had really happened. They later demanded to see the school’s accident book which stated that Chloe had been tied up. Mr David, 33, a steel worker, said last night: ‘I’m disgusted and shocked that Mrs Hill has been sacked and I’m disgusted that the school has been able to cover everything up. ‘It was her job to make sure that children’s welfare was being looked after. That’s what she did but she’s now being punished for doing her job properly. We back Mrs Hill totally. She did not realise we did not know all the facts. We should have done – we should have been called into the school.’ He added: ‘Chloe seems to be doing OK now. She seems to have bounced back better than us. We’re still trying to cope with what happened.’ Many parents are backing the dinner lady and want her to be reinstated. Sue Dyer and her husband Ivan, 50, a horticultural engineer, have five children at Great Tey Primary School. Mrs Dyer said: ‘The way Carol’s been treated is totally unjust. I would put total trust in her ability to look after my children. ‘Carol is 100 per cent for children, she is a very popular figure in the village and the school. ‘The children think Carol’s coming back – they keep asking, when is Mrs Hall back?’ Mrs Dyer said that if the headteacher had informed Chloe’s parents about the full extent of the bullying in the first instance, the trouble would have been avoided. Margaret Morrissey, of family campaign group Parents Outloud, said: ‘I’m absolutely sure she was just trying to act in the best interests of the child. ‘I doubt if there’s anyone who knew what had happened who wouldn’t want to sympathise. I’m sure that parents will be very upset to hear that she’s lost her job over it.’ Headmistress Debbie Crabb has insisted that Chloe’s parents were told of the incident according to school ‘accident and first aid procedures’. But she said the procedures would be reviewed. She said yesterday: ‘We can confirm that subject to any appeal Mrs Hill will not be returning to work at Great Tey Primary School.’