A NURSERY worker called a colleague a dour-faced c***” in front of nursery-aged children.
Lynne Cattanach, a 54-year-old grandmother, has been sanctioned by the profession’s watchdog for putting young children “at risk of emotional harm”.
The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) found that Mrs Cattanach used foul language and offensive hand gestures while working with youngsters ranging in age from babies to five.
Although it did not form part of the case, Mrs Cattanach’s public Facebook page contains an obscene Christmas song featuring references to drugs and prostitution.
She worked at Hoodles Childcare, Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, between February 2013 and 2014, looking after children aged between six weeks and five years old.
During that time, she reportedly had “ongoing issues” with her colleague ‘MM’, which culminated in her using offensive language when talking about MM with another workmate.
The proven charge states that she “did use foul language within the nursery and within the presence of service users whilst referring to a colleague, MM, to another colleague, namely CC in that she did state “you dour faced c***” or words to that effect.”
It was also found proven that she “made an inappropriate and offensive gesture towards MM within the nursery playroom and in the presence of service users”.
Finally, the panel found that she “recorded on an Accident Reporting Form that she had witnessed an accident when she had not”.
The Social Services ombudsman branded her behaviour as “dishonest” and decided to place a warning on her registration record for a year.
At the hearing in Dundee two weeks ago, they said that she “did demonstrate an unacceptable disregard for colleague’s wellbeing and did cause, or was likely to cause, distress to the colleague and any service users who were present and put her and them at risk of emotional harm.”
Mrs Cattanach has also openly sworn and used obscene language on her public Facebook page.
In December 2011, she shared a crude Christmas rhyme which included the lines “crashing into trees, because I’m off my f****** head”, “been smoking Santa’s pipe”, “Blitzen’s f*****, the elves are too” and “If Rudolph snorts another line the t*** will end up dead.”
A year earlier, she wrote in relation to an X-Factor act: “Who the hell is voting for that Wagner t***”.
She also shared a song about Jeremy Kyle, in which she calls him a “w*****” and says that the people on his show are “stinking smackrats”, “2-timing runts” and “ugly t****”.
Her Facebook page now states that she works at clothing store M&Co.
A spokeswoman for the SSSC said: “The outcome was that misconduct was found and the sanction was to place a warning on the registration record for a year.”
A spokeswoman for Hoodles Childcare has previously said that Mrs Cattanach no longer works for the nursery.
Mrs Cattanach was not available for comment.
