A former Ofsted inspector sacked for brushing water off a toddler’s head was unfairly dismissed, the Court docket of Enchantment has discovered.
Andrew Hewston confronted a disciplinary panel and was sacked in 2019 after he approached a pupil who had been drenched with rain and expressed his sympathy, wiping water off his brow throughout a college inspection.
Following a disciplinary process, the watchdog stated they felt Mr Hewston was unable to “keep the skilled boundaries” and hadn’t recognised his “error”, regardless of him saying he would by no means do it once more.
An employment enchantment tribunal verdict in 2023 dominated that Mr Hewston had been unfairly dismissed, which Ofsted had tried to overturn by means of a Court docket of Enchantment listening to final autumn.
The Court docket of Enchantment unanimously dominated in favour of Mr Hewston, who was represented by Unison, with one choose describing the watchdog’s resolution as “deeply regrettable”.
They known as the incident a “momentary and well-meaning lapse {of professional} judgement” that he was “unlikely to ever repeat”.
Judges known as Mr Hewston, who had labored for the watchdog for over a decade, “an skilled inspector with an unblemished disciplinary file on safeguarding points”, and stated it wasn’t clear which guidelines he had damaged.
Mr Hewston described the previous five-and-a-half years he spent coping with the “fallout” of Ofsted’s resolution as a “very troublesome time”.
“I’m glad my title has been cleared and my exemplary file stays intact,” he stated.
“With out the help of Unison, I might’ve accepted the unique verdict and my 35-year profession would have been destroyed. I shudder to suppose what my life could be like now if I’d executed that.”
Unison criticised the watchdog for utilizing public funds to pursue Mr Hewston by means of the courts.
The union’s normal secretary Christina McAnea stated: “Andrew Hewston’s profession was unnecessarily minimize quick by Ofsted. He by no means ought to have been sacked and Ofsted shouldn’t have wasted public cash pursuing him by means of the courts.
“The velocity at which the judges rejected Ofsted’s enchantment displays how unsuitable it was to proceed going after Andrew. Hopefully, his lengthy ordeal is now lastly drawing to an in depth.”
