Childcare centre owner accused of smacking kids, locking them in rooms and abusing staff denies all misconduct

The centre's owner denied smacking children herself, and denied encouraging other staff and parents to as well. Photo / 123rf

The owner of an early childcare centre has accused 10 former employees and parents of colluding against her as part of a “witch hunt”.

“That’s the feeling that I have,” the woman, who has interim name suppression along with the centre she owned, told the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal this morning when she took the stand under cross-examination.

She has been charged with serious misconduct following allegations she smacked children, locked them in rooms as punishment, abused her staff and denied proper medical attention to toddlers who had sustained serious injuries.

The centre had its licence suspended in 2020 and was shut down in 2021 after the Ministry of Education received numerous complaints and identified 33 breaches of its rules.

Staff at the centre have given evidence at the hearing, which began on Tuesday.

They claimed the owner would ridicule or abuse them when they raised issues about some of the practices they had seen.

However, in evidence, the owner said she welcomed being challenged about her methods and if staff raised a complaint she would reflect on it.

She claimed staff had never raised issues about locking children in the sleep room, nor about issues with the quality of the food.

She also denied threatening staff members’ jobs, calling them incompetent and said she had never called one staff member who was eating KFC in the break room “fat”.

“It’s not true. I never speak to people like that,” she told the tribunal.

One staffer told the tribunal earlier that she had to work without a bra after she wasn’t allowed to leave and buy a new one.

The owner denied this and said staff could leave whenever they wanted and didn’t even have to ask her, instead they just had to note it in a book.

Staff also claimed the woman made them scrub the floor on their hands and knees. During cross-examination she admitted that was part of the end-of-year clean-up but said staff had wanted to do and that she would help.

“We had a great time,” she told the tribunal.

Former staff claimed the woman had created a working environment where they were afraid to speak up about issues they had about the woman’s methods.

The woman, however, said it was a positive workplace with a good culture.

She said the complaints from staff and parents of the children they cared for were a complete surprise to her.

“If people didn’t tell me otherwise we got on with our jobs and it was happy place.”

The hearing is set down for the whole week in Palmerston North. Photo / Jeremy Wilkinson

When asked by prosecution if she felt like the complainants were colluding against her, likening it to a ”witch hunt”, the woman said yes.

Smacking, Sleep Room

The woman said she didn’t recall yanking a child back as he tried to go inside the centre and smacking him on the hand, as has been alleged.

She denied the incident occurred.

“I don’t even remember that incident happening. If it was any child I would never yank or pull a child.”

She said the staff member who reported the incident was lying.

“I advocate for children, not against them. I would never smack a child, there’s no need to smack a child.”

Staff members and parents have given evidence alleging the owner encouraged smacking children in order to get them to behave.

The woman also denied those allegations.

During cross examination from the Complaints Assessment Committee’s (CAC) counsel Elena Mok, which is prosecuting the woman on behalf of the Teaching Council, she also denied forcibly removing pancakes from a child’s mouth and ordering another child to spit out chips.

When the child did not listen, she allegedly used her fingers to scrape the chips from his mouth.

The owner said both of these incidents had not occurred but staff members have claimed in evidence to have witnessed it.

“I never experienced that scenario at all,” the woman said, “It did not happen.”

“I know the law, I know what to do. I would never do that.”

Mok told the tribunal multiple people had alleged the woman used the sleep room as a form of behaviour management, claiming she would lock children in it for up to an hour and would not let them out for meals.

Mok alleged it was a common practice and that the woman would tell staff off if they tried to let the children out.

“That would never happen,” the woman said.

“No child was in there for any longer than a couple of minutes max.”

Medical Treatment, Food

The woman was accused of minimising the seriousness of injuries children had sustained in her care including a child who had broken her elbow.

She said staff did not know how serious the injury was until the parent had informed them she had broken a bone and wouldn’t be attending the centre for a while.

Witnesses gave evidence that the child was treated with an icepack tied around the arm with an “old rag”.

The woman conceded it might have looked like an old rag but was actually a sanitary cloth and kept with the first aid supplies.

Mok put it to the woman that an icepack was insufficient to treat a broken elbow.

“I believed that it was at the time. We’re not equipped with anything else to treat it with.”

Mok also claimed the woman made a member of staff finish the remaining hour of her shift after her child - who was attending the centre - sustained a head wound that required stitches.

“If a child ever got hurt or a staff member was sick they were free to go,” the woman said in response.

The woman denied claims an old rag was used to hold an icepack onto a child who had sustained “crush injuries” to his finger.

She said an icepack would not have been effective for an injury like that and instead staff gave the child “cuddles” and reassured him his mother was on the way.

“Children hate icepacks. If they’re already under trauma you don’t slap an icepack on a little finger like that,” the woman said.

“They kept reassuring him and cuddling him.”

“But it’s not first aid,” Mok said.

“It is first aid. I used to be a nurse in an ambulance.”

Other charges against the woman relate to food not being stored at an appropriate temperature, a lack of vegetables and variety in the centre’s menu, that vinegar and water was used instead of Ministry-approved cleaning chemicals and dishes had to be hand-washed to save power.

In response, the woman said she oversaw the menu but she did not design it.

She said that no staff, including the in-house chef, had raised concerns about the quality of the food with her.