July 2007 - Child Care Worker Attack

A former child care worker has been awarded damages after her employers failed to protect her from being attacked by a teenager.

Ms Glynda Robinson, 60, worked for the Greenacre Children’s Unit in Crawley, West Sussex, as a senior child care officer.

As a result of an assault by a teenager who had already attacked other members of staff, Mrs Robinson suffered post traumatic disorder, loss of hair and physical injury. She was unable to return to work and retired on medical grounds. Staff had previously made repeated written and verbal complaints to the managers of the unit about the teenager, but no steps were taken to remedy the situation.

West Sussex County Council initially denied any liability for the incident, and after court proceedings were initiated, they still did not admit liability but an undisclosed sum of compensation was agreed.

Tanveer Jaleel, senior partner at TJL Solicitors comments: “All employers are obliged to provide the information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure that employees can carry out their jobs safely. If a worker is placed in a dangerous situation, they need to be trained to deal with it.
“It was clear in this case that the management knew about the danger to staff and, therefore, any risks were foreseeable, and could have been prevented. If you’ve been involved in an incident in the workplace and your employer or a colleague could be to blame, then you could claim compensation.”