Teacher left preschooler in van for hours

A preschool teacher has been censured after she accidentally locked a young girl inside a van for more than four hours.

Via Lam-sam-tai dropped three preschoolers to their homes on a Friday afternoon in September 2016, then left the van parked at her house and went to a funeral.

She did not realise that a fourth child was still inside the van.

The girl was found by police at 8pm. She was still strapped in her car seat and was upset but otherwise unharmed.

During their search for the missing child, police couldn’t reach Lam-sam-tai because her cellphone was off.

After investigating, they issued Lam-sam-tai with a written warning for neglect of a child.

The Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal has now censured Lam-sam-tai, saying her actions amounted to serious misconduct.

Lam-sam-tai’s conduct was a ‘‘grievous failure to attend to the child’s wellbeing and also to comply with the check procedure provided’’, its ruling, released on Thursday, said.

‘‘There could have been tragic consequences.’’

Lam-sam-tai’s serious misconduct was likely to have ‘‘adversely’’ affected the child’s well-being and learning, the tribunal said.

However, she will be allowed to continue teaching as she apologised to the girl’s family shortly after the incident.

Despite only having provisional pre-school teacher registration, Lam-sam-tai was demoted rather than fired from the pre-school centre, which has name suppression.

At the time she said she had made a ‘‘horrible mistake’’.