Nanny crisis - please help (very long)!!!!!!!!

[NannyNightmare]

Namechanged but am a very regular poster on both this board and others amongst the Mumsnet winds.

I have 3 DC's and we have had our current nanny for 4 months. Children are aged 8, 2.5, and not quite 1. Nanny has generally been great, I come home to find a spotless house, nanny diary with balanced meals listed and all children eating well, happy, and normally reading books together.

I came home today from work about 2 hours early (which I never do) to hear my 8-year-old crying in his room with the door locked (his room is on ground floor). We have a very old house whereby doors can only be locked with big rusty keys hung above fireplace that we NEVER use. I walked into kitchen where nanny was force-feeding my 2.5-year-old a massive plate of mashed potato and nothing else. When I say force-feeding, I mean by daughter was strapped into her high chair, nanny had one hand opening her mouth, other hand with spoon shoving it in.

I promptly said, "Nanny, what on EARTH are you doing? Why is DS locked in his room and STOP doing that with DD1" whereby she looked horrified, stood up, went to lounge and got her bag, and left WITHOUT SAYING A WORD.

I took DD1 out of chair, cleaned her up and calmed her down, let out DS who said Nanny had her boyfriend over that day and the children were supposed to play in DS's room quietly. He said DD2 was crying, he went to get Nanny, Nanny locked him in the room, shouted and swore, dropped 2 DD's in their rooms, and he hadn't seen her since then.

On the kitchen side was the nanny diary where I saw she had already listed DD as having eaten 'Mashed potato - all, Chicken - all, Green beans - all'.

DS is generally a shy boy but he doesn't make up many tales and the fact she just left with absolutely no conversation whatsoever has me believing him. Where do I go to report this, I have called/texted/emailed nanny and had no reply (naturally). I have canceled our direct debit into her account, we found her privately and not through an agency. I am very tempted to contact her previous references and inform them of this to warn potential other employers.

Who do I ring? Police?

nannynightmare she wasnt called sue was she!!!!!i worked in wimbledon ten yrs ago as a nanny and there was a particular nanny who was always blowing her own trumpet how good she was.She worked for my employers friend so i seen them often but her charges seemed frightened of her and she slapped the little boy in front of me so i told my employer who told hers.the little boy was asked if he liked sue he replied yes but he knew no better as his previous nanny was a cow too.anyway i was off for two weeks when i got back she had left as she had been stealing from them,and i believe she is working in north london she was a very strange woman!!!!this by no means ,make all nannies bad as there is always a bad apple!!!i worked with some lovely nannies in wimbledon.good luck in finding someone nice

prob not your sue as this nanny child abuser has only been qualified 4years

Nannynightmare - sorry to hear what a dreadful experience you and your DC have had. I too had a similar experience, Nanny would leave 13 month old in her cot all day screaming, she was abusive to callers on the phone and insulting of me to others (amongst other things). This was 7 years ago so not your Nanny. I did sack her and she did ask for a reference - I duly said that I employed her from dates and for people to contact me for further information.

I then got a phone call from a Mum of a 5 month old and, probably illegally, I told Mum exactly what Nanny was like. She was very appreciative of the honesty.

I then got a series of abusive texts from Nanny, saying I'd ruined her career, I was a bitch, my kids were hell and my house was a dump. I politely replied that she should have thought of her career as Nanny before she decided to abuse my boss on the phone.

The next thing I knew, her name was appearing on Nannyjob on as she was trying to register with other agencies and, when she told them about the lack of reference from me, they said they could not take her on, so she started abusing them on the phone. Her name was mud throughout the Nanny Agencies.

In all my dealings with her I acted professionally and polite, she dug the hole for herself.

fair point bigdonna/blondes - scary as this is by no means all nannies are bad (I'm an accountant and it would be like saying we were all dull ).

what your not dull

very true - there will always be bad nannies,cm and nurseries, just as there are brilliant ones about

its dreadful that this has happened BUT can you imagine IF the op didnt come home early and find out what was happeneing

Hey Nannynightmare, how did it go today?
x x

Is it worth calling Ofsted ? Making sure they don't allow her to register.
Isn't holding a child's mouth open to force feed it assult, in fact I know it's assult, get her charged, you saw it happen.
Locking a child in the room is surely false inprisionment ?

Did she turn up? What happened? Hope your Ds is feeling happier about things.

Northing to add to all the excellent advice here, but just wanted to say I hope you and your DC are bearing up. Also, I don't think you have overreacted at all, fwiw. What a horrible thing to happen .

I would mention the diary being already filled in with entirely fabricated information in any accusation. This is good evidence of dishonesty at least.

Poor you - I think this is the nightmare worry of so many employers of nannies. Makes me want to put secret webcams around the house. You're certainly not overreacting.

did she drop in her keys?

were you there?

Bumping for news

X x X

With regard to the reference, if you give a bland reference using the words, "I would be more than happy to give a verbal reference. Please contact me on ('phone no)". Then, if she does use the reference, you can tell any callers exactly why you fired her.

My heart goes out to you and your children, and I hope that you all get over this quickly. I'd offer an unmumsnetty hug, if that would help...

We had an absolute fruit loop of a nanny genuinely quite dangerous and yet everyone of her references were neutral or good, so they either lied and put my children in danger because they didn't want to say something bad or she flipped when she walked through my door, so I feel very strongly that if a nanny's bad she shouldn't have a neutral reference in case the new mother doesn't click.
My ex nanny currently has a newborn to care for which is so frightening because the mother hasn't spoken to me so she's obviously blagged that and a newborn can't talk.
Oh and I checked with my mum who's a nurse and force feeding an infant is assualt the police should take the matter further.

Sorrento - didn't any of her neutral references expand a bit more when you phoned them?

Nannynightmare - I am so shocked about what has happened and appalled that none of the people you have reported this to seem to be able to take any action against her.

However there are fantastic nannies out there and hopefully you will find one soon. I don't know where you are but if you are anywhere near Croydon or South East London I can recommend a fantastic nanny who was with me for 7 years and is now looking for work.

E-mail me if you want any further information.

I can't believe you're keeping us in suspense this long.

One thing I can't work out is that if people are paying tax on the nanny's earnings, and she works again in the same tax year, how would they not find out? The form we had to fill out for the payroll company this time asks the nanny this question directly. I don't see how she could just submit a previous P45 for example. Or say no, I haven't worked this year. Weird. There must be some way around it but I can't work out how.

I mean, how would the new employers not find out she'd had a job that year, if you see what I mean.

What a load of rubbish the nanny is spouting - if she was just having a stressfull time why did she walk out??!! never mind anything else??

Can you imagine a childminder/nursery/school telling a parent that their child was being a right pain so I locked them in a room?!

No matter what the whole thing is unacceptable.

We all have moments of stress where children won't behave in the way that we would like but it doesn't make it ok what she did. My DS sometime doesn't eat food and is silly with it even though he likes it. I never ram it down his throat!

Where was the behavoiur management?

Oh and I don't think you can give a bad reference can you?

NANNYNIGHTMARE

what happened at the weekend

did she return the keys, were you there, and did she ask for a referEnce and did you give her one?

we NEED to know!!!!

I am a nanny, and would advise contacting all the local agencies as well, so that they are aware and the reasons why not to work on her. Also please do contact someone such ass the police, as she is crb checked and this needs to be put on her crb so that other employers are aware of this situation. I am so very sorry to hear that this has happened. My only advise is to contact a nanny agency in the future as they are there to assist you with this matter and guide you through the process of dealing with this.

tbh even if the nanny had gone come from an agency, there isnt much the agency can do for the OP in these circumstances

yes the agency may ban her from their agency, and not find her any jobs again

but what else can they do?

Hello!! I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back to you. We decided to take an improptu holiday to Scotland to visit DH's parents and spend some family time together which has been an absolute godsend.

She came round Saturday, I had sent the kids off with DH to swimming and stayed back. She was very shocked to see me, didn't make a lot of eye contact, muttered something about 'Hope you are well', shoved the keys at me and left. No mention of the reference. I kept trying to ask her what happened with DS, she kept saying, 'Sorry, I have to go'.

I took the opportunity since DH & DC's were out to have a little cry about the whole thing. Not a big one, but I realised I hadn't really bemoaned the fact yet.

DC's don't seem to be suffering any damage. DD1 seemed a bit confused that nanny hasn't been showing up, but no behavioural or eating (!) issues thank god. DS hasn't asked about her once since the second day she was gone.

We have been trawling through agencies and hopefully will find someone suitable to start next week. I've looked at quite a few good CV's and will be able to meet them in person tomorrow when we finally get back to London. Wish us luck!!!!!

I have just seen this thread and wondered if it could be of some help to you.

I am glad you have finally confronted your ex nanny and goten your keys back. She sounds horrible!

I was a nanny for 12yrs+ and worked in many different countries. I haven't come across anyone like her. She is in the wrong profession!

Good luck finding a new nanny.