EXCLUSIVEPrimary school teacher who smuggled girl, 14, into Britain to act as a slave is banned from the classroom after her shocking crime was exposed
A God-loving teacher has been banned from classroom for life after it emerged she helped smuggle a 14-year-old African child into Britain to act as her slave.
A God-loving teacher has been banned from classroom for life after it emerged she helped smuggle a 14-year-old African child into Britain to act as her slave.
Ernestina Quainoo, 53, has been struck off the teaching register after lying about her child trafficking conviction when she got her job in 2019.
Details of her criminal past only came to light in December 2022 when a colleague was shown a newspaper report about her shocking past and informed her bosses.
In 2008, a court heard Mrs Quainoo, who moved to the UK from Ghana in 2004, and her husband Samuel smuggled the child into Britain with the promise of education and a job when she arrived.
But instead the disgraced teacher and her husband, then aged 59, forced the girl to cook and clean in the house for 18 months as well as babysit their two young sons.
It was said the couple stopped the teen going to school and making friends and dressed her in hand-me-downs, apart from once buying her T-shirts with my other name is bitch printed on them.
She was never paid a penny and later told cops and social workers she was so desperate that she contemplated suicide.
Ernestina Quainoo, 53, has been struck off the teaching register after lying about her child trafficking conviction when she got her job in 2019.
Her ordeal only ended when she fell ill and escaped to get medical help.
When police arrived, Samuel Quainoo, who has a previous conviction for false accounting, claimed the child had cast a voodoo spell on him and his wife.
In 2008, Samuel Quainoo was jailed for 18 months and his wife was given a suspended sentence for assisting unlawful immigration into the UK.
Teaching watchdogs were told that when interviewed for a job as a class teacher at Cherry Lane Primary School, West Drayton, in May 2019 Mrs Quainoo did ultimately declare she had an immigration offence conviction - after initially denying she had any convictions, claiming this was an oversight in her haste to complete the application form.
She was hired in July that year as a teacher of Key Stage One pupils but in December 2022 the school was tipped off about the news articles about the 2008 court case.
Safeguarding concerns were raised, and she was suspended 10 days before Xmas, pending an investigation.
She resigned in February but her former employers continued the disciplinary process and referred the matter to the Teaching Regulation Agency.
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act gives people with spent convictions and cautions the right not to have to disclose when applying for most jobs.
So when Mrs Quainoo filled in the application form she initially replied No to the section dealing with past convictions.
But in a subsequent Disclosure Statement Mrs Quainoo did correct this and declare she had been convicted for Assist Unlawful Immigration into an EU Member State on 11 July 2008.
Mrs Quainoo claimed, within the Disclosure Statement, that this conviction related to when she assisted and came along [to the UK] with a lady I lived with as a family member.
Mrs Quainoo was a former teacher at Cherry Lane Primary School, West Drayton, in west London (pictured)
The Disclosure Statement continued: Two years later, in June 2006, this came to the attention of the authorities and I was arrested.
Due to my inability to demonstrate that she [the individual] was a member [of] the family, I was charged with assisting her unlawful entry into the UK on 11th July, for which I pleaded guilty as I completely misunderstood the cultural differences that exist between the two countries.
As a result of this, I was given a two-year suspended sentence and required to undertake a Womens Programme for a few months.
The panel heard from the presenting officer that Mrs Quainoos conviction as described in the Disclosure Statement was not protected under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.
Sue Davies, who chaired the TRA hearing, concluded: It was therefore disclosable for the purposes of the application form.
Accordingly, the panel concluded that the information Mrs Quainoo provided on the application form when she answered No to that question was not correct.
But the panel ruled there was not enough evidence that she had deliberately lied and therefore found a dishonesty allegation not proved.
Mrs Davies continued: At the time, the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance did not require that an internet search of candidates was undertaken.
The panel accepted that the school chose to still employ Mrs Quainoo on the basis of the Disclosure Statement and the DBS check giving them no reason to believe the offence might have been in relation to a child.
The panel considered it was regrettable that no further investigation was undertaken by the School to inform the risk assessment at the time in its discharging of its safeguarding duty.
Banning her from the profession for at least two years, Sarah Buxcey, for the Education Secretary, underlined: Mrs Quainoos conduct leading to the conviction ran counter to what should have been at the very core of her practice as a teacher with a duty of care towards children.
A prohibition order would therefore prevent such a risk from being present in the future.
