A childcare manager refused to apologise to a toddler who burnt their hand on a lamp, an employment tribunal heard as it ruled her subsequent sacking was fair.
Tracy Maddison said she would “rather resign” than say sorry to the two-year old, whose hand was blistered by a hot light bulb in a lamp in the nursery where she worked.
A senior employee at Thorpe Willoughby Childcare Centre, Ms Maddison displayed a “dismissive” attitude towards the accident and failed to remove the lamp, the tribunal heard.
Ms Maddison was a manager at the centre in Selby, North Yorkshire, when the child touched the lamp on the nursery floor in June 2023. The toddler had to be taken to hospital for treatment, the tribunal heard.
Ms Maddison claimed that while the child was initially “very distressed and upset” after the injury, by the time she reached the scene the “screaming had stopped” and “the child was calm”.
She said that she asked a colleague to advise the parents to take the youngster to A&E to “get checked out”.
However, the tribunal heard that Ms Maddison failed to call the child’s parents, which is mandatory under the childcare centre’s policy when accidents occur.
Complaint from mother
Ms Maddison apologised to the child’s mother – who later said she was “unhappy” with her conduct – but didn’t ask how the child was, the tribunal heard.
When asked to say sorry to the child, Ms Maddison said she would “rather resign”, adding: “There is no way I am apologising to a two-year old for the accident.”
During an HR investigation, further complaints about Ms Maddison’s conduct arose, the tribunal was told, with one employee citing her “unprofessional and concerning attitude”.
It was heard Ms Maddison would often shout at staff in an “aggressive manner” and would claim back hours “without approval” when working from home.
Ms Maddison, who was fired in September 2023, claimed unfair dismissal – but this was rejected at the employment tribunal by Jeremy Shulman, an employment judge.
Mr Shulman said the lamp incident was “serious, not necessarily because of the accident itself, but because of the claimant’s uncaring attitude to the child, the mother [and] concerned staff”.
He ruled that sacking Ms Maddison was a “reasonable” response by her employers and she had not been unfairly dismissed.