Typo in teacher’s name had ‘nothing to do with race’, tribunal rules
Chandrika Punshon claimed the errant letter ‘a’ in her surname amounted to an ‘over-generalisation of Hindi words’
A typing error which led to the misspelling of an Indo-Canadian teacher’s name at a prestigious grammar school had “nothing to do with her race”, an employment tribunal has ruled.
Chandrika Punshon claimed the errant letter “a” in her surname amounted to an “over-generalisation of Hindi words such as Himalayas”.
Punshon is her married name, and the origins are English not Indian, the hearing was told.
In reaching its decision, the tribunal highlighted the fact that Mrs Punshon had repeatedly misspelled the surname of a colleague, even though she had met him and knew who he was.
The panel concluded her complaint was “totally without any merit” and dismissed it.
Mrs Punshon started working at the Royal Latin School in Buckinghamshire as a computing teacher in September 2022, a tribunal in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, heard.
The same month, she was being set up on the school’s exams system, and was told her username was “cpunshan” – which included an incorrect spelling of her surname.
The teacher, who “identifies her race as Indo/Canadian”, appeared “not to have noticed” the error, and carried on trying to access the system, the tribunal heard.
When the school’s exams manager, Mary Biltcliffe, realised her mistake, she corrected it and apologised, the panel was told.
Mrs Biltcliffe told the tribunal she had been “busy at the time”, and put the mistake down to a “typing error rather than a deliberate misspelling”.
The exams manager had never met Mrs Punshon before and “did not have direct knowledge of her race”, the panel heard.
During her evidence, it was established that Punshon was the teacher’s “married name and the origins are English not Indian”, the tribunal heard.
She said the mistake “was an over-generalisation of Hindi words such as Himalayas”, the written tribunal decision said.
“Mrs Punshon appeared to accept in her closing submissions that this was simply a typing error,” it added.
The teacher made repeated misspellings of other people’s names, the tribunal heard.
“In an email… Mrs Punshon repeatedly misspelled the surname of Jason Skyrme even though she had met him and knew who he was.”
Dismissing the teacher’s complaint, the tribunal said the “factual premise” had not been made out because “there were no persistent mistakes in spelling her surname”.
“Mrs Punshon’s surname is in any event an English name and not Indo-Canadian, therefore the misspelling of that name had nothing whatsoever to do with her race.
“We record that Mrs Punshon did not even advance this as a complaint of direct discrimination or harassment related to race before us.
“The complaint was totally without any merit and we dismiss it.”
The teacher’s claims of of direct race discrimination, direct sex discrimination, harassment related to race and harassment related to sex, failed.
The school’s application for a costs hearing against her will go ahead at a later date.