Teacher accused of looking at her colleagues’ emails after holiday row
A primary school teacher started snooping on her colleagues’ emails after a row over cancelled holiday, a court has heard.
Claims have been made that experienced educator Donna-maria Thomas was acting as a whistleblower amid allegations of ‘inconsistencies’ in testing.
Ms Thomas, 45, of North Road, Bosham, is accused of illegally accessing up to six of her colleagues’ email accounts to see if they were talking about her. At the time of the alleged offences, she was a teacher at Aldingbourne Primary School.
She appeared at Portsmouth Crown Court for trial on Monday after denying securing unauthorised access to computer material.
Prosecutor Paul Fairley said ‘hacking is probably a step too far’ to describe the accusations, which date between December 2018 and January 2019.
Instead he said Ms Thomas had been ‘going into other people’s emails seeing if there was anything being written about her, seeing if there was perhaps anything she could use’.
He told socially distanced jurors that the ‘feud’ between Ms Thomas and headteacher Liz Webster began over a ‘misunderstanding’.
He said: “Holiday had been booked by Ms Thomas. Flights had been booked and Ms Webster realised a mistake had been made, felt she could not authorise the holiday. From that falling out with Ms Webster, it appears the relationship very much soured. (Ms Thomas) complained about Ms Webster on various occasions to the chair of the school governors.
“There were allegations made that might be termed whistleblowing in terms of possible inconsistencies of the ways that the Key Stage One testing process was being administered.”
The court heard that this related to Year 2 Sats tests.
The situation deteriorated to such a degree that at one stage Ms Thomas was communicating with people only by email and text message, the court heard.
Defence barrister Daniel Darnbrough questioned school-contracted IT technician Simon Williams over whether password security at the school was ‘poor’.
Fellow Aldingbourne teacher Natasha Maysey answered questions on whether there was a ‘culture’ of password sharing among teachers.
Mr Darnbrough asked her: “Somebody asked for a password in relation to schoolwork that was then given over?”
She said this was the case. The trial continues.