Teacher ‘liked being centre of attention’
A FORMER teacher whose testicles were allegedly “grabbed” by a colleague gave evidence to a tribunal assessing whether she should be allowed to continue teaching.
The man, who used to work at Llanishen Fach Primary School in Cardiff, told an Education Workforce Council (EWC) fitness to practise hearing he was left in shock following the alleged incident.
Helen Elizabeth Evans, a teacher of 22 years, is accused of unacceptable professional conduct in relation to a number of alleged incidents while working at the school.
The hearing at the Mercure Hotel in Cardiff, which Ms Evans has not attended, heard yesterday from a man referred to as Colleague A.
He told the panel that at a fundraising event involving parents and teachers in May 2013 Ms Evans approached him out of the blue and ripped his shirt then grabbed his testicles.
“I was completely shocked,” he said. “Out of the blue Ms Evans strode up to me, faced me, with one hand ripped on my shirt and got underneath and grabbed my testicles.
“It was completely unprovoked. I made a noise as she caught me and she rushed away.”
The hearing was told how Colleague A confronted Ms Evans in the school staff room a few days later.
He said: “I whispered to her that if that had been a man to a woman it would’ve been handled differently. She didn’t react.
“She has never approached me in a sexual way before. My guess is that it was more of a control issue – exerting control over another colleague, getting one up on them.”
Colleague A added: “Helen always liked to be the centre of attention – she had narcissistic tendencies.
“It was a shock, I don’t expect anyone to treat someone like that.
“But Helen did what Helen wanted to do. She ignored advice and warnings and had no empathy for other colleagues.”
The hearing had earlier been told the matter was referred to police but the Crown Prosecution Service did not take it any further.
After being shown a series of exhibits on Monday, Colleague A said: “We were being portrayed as this perfect school and there is no perfect school.
“It was dealt with in-house – there should have been procedures that should have been followed.
“My fear was in order to protect the school’s reputation it was kept in-house to carry on pretending everything was fine.”
EWC presenting officer Hannah Eales added: “In a meeting with Ms Evans, Ms Evans confirmed the incident happened, describing it as part of a much wider group of silly behaviour.
“An event between consenting adults and just silly behaviour.”
Ms Evans is accused of eight counts including failing to follow management instructions, behaving unacceptably towards colleagues, making inappropriate comments, providing inaccurate information in school reports, behaving in a sexually-motivated way to a colleague, and being “dishonest” in her monitoring of pupils.
The hearing will resume tomorrow.