Friday, March 29, 2024
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Accused social worker “forced colleagues to cancel cancer screening”

A SOCIAL worker faces being struck off amid claims she forced colleagues to cancel cancer screening appointments.

Anna Harrower, an ex-nursery manager from Falkirk, allegedly told two staff members to cancel their smear tests a total of eight times.

The 36-year-old is also accused of telling a co-worker that she “didn’t want to look at her face any more” and ordered her desk to be moved from the office.

And she even refused a colleague time off to go home and change after she was covered in child’s vomit, according to one of the charges.

Mrs Harrower, who was in charge at the Babes in the Wood nursery, faces a total of 18 charges at a Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) hearing in Dundee next week.

The majority of claims amount to acting “in an inappropriate and bullying manner” towards her colleagues for the nine years between 2003 and 2012.

Mrs Harrower, who was in charge at the Babes in the Wood nursery, faces a total of 18 charges at a Scottish Social Services Council
Mrs Harrower, who was in charge at the Babes in the Wood nursery, faces a total of 18 charges at a Scottish Social Services Council

 

One charge accuses Mrs Harrower of “forcing her colleagues FF and DD to cancel a smear test appointment on at least five and three occasions respectively”.

Another charge states that she was “shouting at AA that she ‘didn’t want to look at her face anymore’, or words to that effect, and arranged for her desk to be moved out of her office”.

She allegedly made negative comments about one colleague’s weight, saying “you’ll be needing a large” when ordering new staff uniforms.

It is also claimed that she said to the same worker: “You are the sickest person I have ever met in my life” and shouted at her when making comments about her sickness absence.

Another charge accuses Mrs Harrower of “initially refusing to allow her colleague DD to go home and change, despite being covered in a child’s vomit”.

She supposedly ripped out pages of a book which included children’s work and forced an employee to come in after she phoned in sick.

She even refused one co-worker time off when she wanted to take her husband to hospital after he suffered a blackout, it has been claimed.

Another charge states that she forced a colleague to come into work after they had phoned in sick, and said no when they asked to go home after suffering from sickness and diarrhoea.

The final charges say that she regularly took unauthorised absences from the nursery and asked her colleagues to lie about her whereabouts.

The nursery, which is now believed to have closed, provided childcare for 45 families in the area. It was run by Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a UK-wide childcare company.

A SSSC sub-committee will assess the charges and determine whether they are to be found proved. They will then decide whether Mrs Harrower should be removed from the social services register.

During the time period of the allegations, Mrs Harrower married her husband, Scott, at the 3-star Park Hotel in Callendar Park, Falkirk.

Speaking from her detached bungalow in a cul-de-sac, the blonde mother-of-two said that she did not wish to comment on the charges.

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