The Big Brother Watch team is well used to receiving reports of odd and extraordinary rulings from education-establishment busybodies but this one, quite literally, takes the biscuit.
Kathleen Lavery, a married mother of three, has been forced to quit her job as a primary school dinner lady in the Northern Ireland town of Enniskillen following the stress of an internal disciplinary procedure instigated after she gave a young child a biscuit.
Mrs Lavery was informed by the school that “her actions could be interpreted by some as grooming a child for sexual purposes”, a preposterous allegation which has led to rumours and innuendo about her personal life.
The Chairman of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Education committee Mervyn Storey commented the investigation was "political correctness gone too far". He’s right.
Read the full story, c/o of the Telegraph, here.
Update: A BBW supporter has informed us that common sense has now prevailed and Mrs Lavery has been reinstated to her post.
She has since been reinstated in her job according to the BBC.
Posted by: Chris | 11/10/2010 at 09:31 AM
I should add that Mrs Lavery did not offer the biscuit to the child (to whom she was related, by the way) herself. She merely asked another dinner lady to give the child one. It was as tenuous as that. I posted about it here. What I want to know is a) what stunted personality thought that this was worth reporting to the authorities, and b) why it took the school so long to decide she had no case to answer. Two years - could have been two minutes.
Posted by: Richard B | 11/10/2010 at 10:14 AM
Oops, link didn't appear. My post was here: http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/2010/10/grooming-nothing-to-do-with-combs.html
Posted by: Richard B | 11/10/2010 at 10:15 AM
I hope and trust that, since her reinstatement, Mrs Lavery has given biscuits to many, many more children. May we know the identities of the individuals responsible for her persecution?
Posted by: Richard Craven | 13/10/2010 at 08:18 AM