# Primary school teaching assistant sacked for tickling five schoolgirls

- Link: https://viralbrief.top/primary-school-teaching-assistant-sacked-for-tickling-five-schoolgirls/
- Published: 2026-10-23T19:15:24+00:00
- Author: Olamide

A primary school teaching assistant has been fired after tickling five schoolgirls
with a crocodile puppet.

 

According to Mail Online, Peter La Bouchardiere was reported after a pupil said 
he made her feel ‘uncomfortable’ during a PE lesson at a school in Feltham, west
London.

 

The special needs teaching assistant said it was just ‘tongue-in-cheek and cheekiness’
and that he often playfully ‘chased’ young pupils.

 

He also replied to a child who was singing a song from a cartoon about having squirrels
in her pants, asking ‘Would you like some nuts in your pants?’, before other pupils
laughed and he corrected himself.

 

Following his sacking, Mr La Bouchardiere sued for unfair dismissal but has now 
lost his claim at the Reading Employment Tribunal.

 

He started working at Edward Pauling Primary School in Feltham in April 2013 and
worked there for almost ten years with pupils up to year six – who are aged ten 
and 11.

 

Inquiries began when he was told of making a pupil feel ‘uncomfortable’ on two different
occasions.

 

The tribunal heard that the school’s safeguarding and attendance manager received
a report on March 9, 2023, that Mr La Bouchardiere ‘had behaved inappropriately 
towards a female year six pupil’.

 

The ruling added: ‘She spoke to the pupil, who said that the claimant had been tickling
her and four of her friends on their waists.

 

‘It was said that he had done this in PE and during the Gifted and Talented club
sessions.

 

‘It was said that he had done this using a puppet and had pretended to “get” them
with it.’

 

The tribunal also heard the pupil’s mother told the school that during homework 
club her daughter had been singing a song from a cartoon called ‘I got some squirrels
in my pants’ and Mr La Bouchardiere asked her: ‘Would you like some nuts in your
pants?’

 

She said there was a five-second delay before he added ‘for the squirrel’.

The mother said she found it ‘extremely inappropriate’ and that she had known about
the tickling for a while.

 

During the school’s investigation, Mr La Bouchardiere was suspended, before the 
allegations were put to him in a meeting. 

 

The tribunal heard that when asked about the nuts comment, he replied: ‘Oh, now 
I understand how that sounds.’

 

He explained in a subsequent letter that he had said something about ‘feeding squirrels
nuts’ to the pupil who was singing but ‘meant nothing inappropriate’.

 

At a school disciplinary meeting, talking about the tickling, Mr La Bouchardiere
agreed that he ‘might have bit them in the region of the waist close to the hip 
with a crocodile puppet in a playful fashion’ and that he had probably done it to
a ‘few’ children.

 

He told the meeting: ‘Some of the older ones and the younger ones – younger ones
I would have been chasing.’

 

He said the pupils ‘always engage in friendly banter’, adding: ‘I probably have 
tickled – they banter about my food looking like sick or my haircut or anything,
so I probably have tickled them, but they have never said stop because I would have.’

 

The tribunal was told he also said at the meeting: ‘Some of them I have known for
eight years, so it is just friendly conversation and sometimes banter is involved
and if they don’t notice me coming I try and scare them a bit.

 

‘I thought it was tongue-in-cheek and cheekiness.’

 

He was interviewed by the police two months later and admitted tickling the children
and enjoying ‘banter’ with them, but he did not think they ever said they did not
like it.

 

No further action was taken by the police but he was dismissed from the school in
September 2023 for gross misconduct.

 

He appealed because he said that the school’s investigation of the pupils’ allegations
was not thorough enough, but this was unsuccessful.

 

Mr La Bouchardiere told the tribunal he ‘didn’t think tickling was a problem’, adding:‘
I only knew tickling was wrong from the police when discussing casual touching with
them.

 

‘I didn’t think the waist was inappropriate [for tickling] until it was explained
to me.’

 

Giving evidence to the tribunal, the school’s vice chair of governors Peter Tyndale
said the school panel had discussed not dismissing Mr La Bouchardiere, but he had
been ‘stupid’.

 

Mr Tyndale said: ‘It took a while – we didn’t take it lightly, safeguarding and 
very large responsibilities.

 

‘I didn’t agree with everything on the panel, but the decision was based purely 
on a safeguarding issue. You cannot touch children in a swimming costume area.’

 

Employment Judge Colin Baran ruled that the school was entitled to sack Mr La Bouchardiere,‘
largely on the basis of his own admissions’ and ‘serious safeguarding concerns’.

 

The judge said: ‘In my judgment the panel diligently considered all of the circumstances
relevant to the appropriate sanction.

 

‘They considered alternatives to dismissal, to the extent that Mr Tyndale himself
explicitly considered a final written warning to be appropriate.

‘Through deliberations, however, the panel came to the view that dismissal was the
appropriate sanction.

 

‘The admitted conduct in relation to tickling was in breach of safeguarding principles
and the code of conduct.

 

‘It met the definition of gross misconduct in the school’s disciplinary policy. 
It was sufficiently serious to justify dismissal.’

 [Source link ](https://www.lindaikejisblog.com/2026/10/primary-school-teaching-assistant-sacked-for-tickling-five-schoolgirls.html)

  TL;DR (AI Generated)

A primary school teaching assistant was fired for tickling five female students 
with a crocodile puppet and making an inappropriate remark about nuts to a pupil.

Following his dismissal, Peter La Bouchardiere sued the school for unfair dismissal.

An employment tribunal ultimately ruled against him, upholding the school's decision.

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