07c - Incomplete Investigation? Safeguarding Lead’s Premature Closure Raises Tribunal Questions

A central concern raised during the recent Employment Tribunal involving Bury College is whether the College's internal investigation, led by Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) Sarah Walton, ever properly examined the key allegation against the teacher.

According to Walton’s own testimony, she understood from the outset that the allegation was that the Claimant had called a student with a disability a “retard.” Yet in her written statement to the Tribunal, she claimed:

“As [the Claimant] admitted to using the word ‘retard’, no further investigation into the incident was required after this meeting.”

This declaration is significant, because admitting to using the word is not the same as admitting to calling a student the word. The teacher consistently stated that he had repeated the word back to a student after the student said it to him; not that he had directed the term at the student as an insult.

Despite this distinction, the investigation was closed, and no additional steps were taken to clarify or confirm the intent, context, or target of the comment. The investigation notes confirm that no further inquiry was carried out following the second meeting with the teacher.

A Premature Conclusion

This raises troubling questions about the thoroughness and impartiality of the internal investigation. The key allegation, that a disabled student had been verbally abused, was never properly established through evidence. Instead, Walton treated a partial admission (that the word was used at all) as sufficient grounds to move forward without deeper scrutiny.

Given that employment law requires investigations to be fair, balanced, and fact-finding, the decision to halt the investigation without confirming who the word was directed at, or why it was said, could be seen as a breach of basic procedural fairness.

Implications for the Tribunal

This matters because the central justification for the teacher’s dismissal was that he had used a slur against a vulnerable student. If that claim was never factually established during the investigation, and the process relied instead on assumption or misinterpretation, it undermines the legitimacy of the disciplinary outcome.

Moreover, Walton admitted at Tribunal that her understanding of what she was investigating never evolved or adjusted based on the teacher’s version of events. The investigation failed to reconcile conflicting accounts, verify witness statements, or examine possible misunderstandings. In short, it failed to investigate.

Whether the Tribunal finds this to be a procedural flaw, a substantive error, or both, will depend on how the judge weighs the evidence. But one thing is clear: when safeguarding allegations are involved, assumptions are no substitute for facts and shortcuts are no substitute for fairness.

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