A special needs carer slapped an 11-year- old schoolgirl in the face, a judge said yesterday as he awarded the girl €7,500 damages against her former school.
Mr Justice Esmond Smyth said the incident may have happened in a split second and added that the degree of contact between Betty Johnson's hand and the girl's cheek had been excessive.
Ms Johnson had worked on a one-to-one basis with special needs pupil Leah Walsh, Meadowlands Mews, Monkstown, Co Dublin, at Holy Family national school, Monkstown Farm, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.
Conor Bowman, counsel for Leah, had told the court the incident had happened in May 2003 and that Leah had struck Ms Johnson in the face with a book before the alleged assault by her on Leah.
Throughout a two-day hearing, Ms Johnson had maintained in the Circuit Civil Court that her hand had "accidentally and involuntarily collided with Leah's left cheek."
Mr Justice Smyth said he had no doubt Ms Johnson may have had the very best of motives in dealing with Leah after having been hit with the library book, and he felt she may have simply lost for a short time the control she normally would exercise in such circumstances.
He felt sympathetic towards Ms Johnson, but there was a high duty of care required when dealing with children with special needs. Special needs carers should have that extra degree of patience and control required of them in such circumstances.
Mr Justice Smyth said Ms Johnson had stated she had taken Leah's two hands and held them in order to get her attention through eye contact. Leah had pulled her hand away and it had been in an attempt to catch Leah's hand again that Ms Johnson said she had made contact with Leah's cheek.
He did not feel a child of Leah's age would have managed to release her hand from Ms Johnson's hand in such a way as to have caused Ms Johnson's hand to have shot up in what must have been a significant way in the manner in which Ms Johnson had described the contact with Leah's cheek.
Mr Justice Smyth said the principal of the school, Ronan Ryan, had carried out an inquiry into the incident at the time, but it had been less thorough than it should have been.
The judge said the school should have conducted a more comprehensive inquiry. He said Mr Ryan had spoken only to Leah's mother, Susan Stephenson, and to Ms Johnson and had failed to interview either Leah or her classmates, who had been in the room at the time of the incident.