Witch sacked for poor attendance, tribunal told

6:08pm Friday 23rd March 2007

A witch was accused of using her beliefs as a scapegoat for her being sacked, an employment tribunal heard today.

Sommer De La Rosa, 34, a practising white witch of the Wiccan faith, is claiming unfair dismissal after being fired from the Dorothy Stringer School in Brighton, East Sussex.

She claimed she was banned from discussing her faith and wearing a pentagram - a symbol of her faith.

But the school claims she was sacked for her poor attendance. She had 21.5 days off during her six-month probationary period.

Ms De La Rosa worked in the religious studies and music department of the school for eight months until May last year.

The Hove tribunal heard that Ms De La Rosa received advice on discussing her faith with pupils just once, and the subject was only ever raised again by her.

Ms De La Rosa, a single mother, accused her line manager Ros Stephens of being "openly discriminatory" because she "compared my religion to communism stating that it could lead to complaints of tainted teaching methods".

She said: "This made me feel like a freak and that my beliefs were wrong."

Ms Stephens told the tribunal: "I was saying 'if you have a strong belief then maybe it's just best not to mention it at all because it's leading you into unknown territory'."

She accused Ms De La Rosa of using a meeting to discuss her poor attendance record to talk about her faith.

She said: "It was dominating the whole meeting which was meant to be about attendance."

Explaining her communism analogy, she said: "My father was a communist in the 1920s and '30s and fought against fascism and had very strong convictions about what was right. He was a school teacher. He would always go back to his political convictions.

"The way the meeting was progressing, wanting to talk about religion, reminded me of that. It was not meant to be offensive either to my father or to Sommer."

Ms Stephens said that Ms De La Rosa was employed as a departmental assistant and her duties were primarily to provide sick cover for teachers.

She said: "We were forced to bring in additional staff in order to cover staff she should have covered.

Mrs Stephens told the tribunal that Ms De La Rosa had an attendance rate of 20% - equivalent to one day a week at work during the school calendar. Catherine Rayner, counsel for Ms De La Rosa, asked her: "Would you agree that to compare or contrast someone's religious faith with communism is unlikely to be seen by most people as being a statement that is either supportive, or a statement that you value the particular faith?" She replied: "I did not compare Wiccanism to communism, I can't stress that enough. It was not a comparison between the two, it was an analogy of the strong convictions." Ms Rayner said: "When you raised the issue of communism did you say words to the effect that this 'could lead to complaints of tainted teaching methods'?" Mrs Stephens replied: "I was responding to constant questions about whether she should say she was a white witch in the classroom. "She was struggling to know how much of herself to give in the classroom. When children ask a question, how much do you answer, because whenever you answer back you are invoking more questions. "It was very difficult for her to decide what to say and what not to say because she could end up being in a situation that would be inappropriate. "I offered her guidelines. These are not meant to condemn her." Ms De La Rosa claimed after reading the guidelines on how to handle pupils' questions, "I felt angry and appalled that the discriminatory comments and attitudes towards me and my religion were put into writing" and made her "physically sick". She has also been accused of offering to teach a pupil how to cast a spell. She denies this. The school's former head of religious studies, Mick Hickman, told the tribunal yesterday: "Saying 'I'm a white witch' isn't a problem. 'I can put spells' is not a problem, but 'I can train you to put spells' is a problem." Ms De La Rosa claims she only ever told a pupil what faith she practised after being asked if her pentagram was the Star of David and if she was Jewish. Brighton and Hove City Council and the Dorothy Stringer School assert that Ms De La Rosa was sacked because of inappropriate disclosures and poor attendance. The tribunal was adjourned until May 4.