'Supernanny' nursery owner accused of toddler assault

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13 April 2012

A nursery owner with more than 20 years' experience stood trial today accused of assaulting a toddler after she used a technique inspired by TV's Supernanny programme.

Olive Rack, 56, is said to have "overreacted" when she saw a two-year-old girl hit a baby over the head with a toy at the nursery she runs in Kettering, Northamptonshire.

She is charged with one count of common assault against the two-year-old, after it was alleged she dragged the young girl across the nursery, forced her into a chair and poked her twice in the forehead with her index finger.

Local authority education adviser Gillian Whall told Daventry Magistrates' Court today that she was on a routine inspection visit to the Tresco House Day Nursery on July 18 last year when she was "left horrified" by the assault.

Mrs Whall said she saw the two children playing together with lightweight plastic building bricks when the older girl "tapped" the other on the head.

The younger child showed no reaction, but Rack then stepped in to discipline the child.

She said: "Mrs Rack yelled across the room, shouted at the baby and almost rushed across the room.

"She grabbed the little girl by her arm and pulled her across the room so that her feet virtually didn't touch the floor."

After forcing the little girl to sit on a child's chair, Rack continued to berate her for her behaviour.

Mrs Whall went on: "Olive was stood shouting at her. She took a finger and put it to her forehead and pushed her, I think it was twice - her head jerked back.

"The thing that I remember was that she was saying that the little girl could not be trusted to play with babies and how naughty she was.

"The actions to me were more frightening than the words. I was horrified, absolutely horrified.

"The actions of the two children playing, I believe, did not warrant that reaction.

After taking the "distressed" older girl to calm down, Mrs Whall said she saw no injuries on her head.

"I did not look, to be honest," she said, "I was too concerned with the child's distress."

Mrs Whall and a colleague later wrote up a report of what they had witnessed, which sparked the police action.

David Malone, for Rack, suggested to Mrs Whall that Rack had sensed further danger and had stepped in to stop it.

Dragging the older girl to a "naughty chair" was a technique used by Jo Frost, the child expert on Channel 4's Supernanny programme.

"You would never advocate, for example, what Supernanny advocates, where Supernanny takes a child to the naughty step, puts them on the naughty step and says 'Stay there'?"

Mrs Whall said standard procedures set out that there was to be no physical contact when disciplining children, and a verbal command should be enough.

Rack also contends that the older girl hit the baby with a foot-long piece of wooden railway track and not a lightweight plastic brick and she had to step in to prevent more serious injury.

The privately-funded nursery had 14 children in its care at the time of the incident last year.

The prosecution has been brought by Northamptonshire Police after the younger girl's parents made no complaint.

They still send their daughter to the £130-a-week nursery.

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