A magistrates court last week cleared Mrs Rack of assaulting a two-year-old girl at the nursery, in a prosecution brought last year by Northamptonshire Police at the request of the county council's social services.
On 18 July last year two local authority education advisors, Gillian Whall and Julie Medhurst, were visiting Tresco House Day Nursery in Kettering to advise on curriculum. A two-year-old girl hit a baby on the head with a toy brick and the advisors later claimed that Mrs Rack had dragged the girl to a chair and poked her twice in the head (News, 28 September).
Speaking to Nursery World, Mrs Rack said, 'In broad terms, nothing happened. It was a natural everyday occurrence for a nursery. I intervened to protect the baby and sat the child away in another seat. I then went to check that baby was not hurt. Gillian went to comfort the child, totally undermining what I'd done and confusing the child as to what she had done wrong.'
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