A Tauranga primary school teacher found guilty of assaulting a child, will be sentenced in April.

Jane Hanuere Sowerby, 55, appeared in Tauranga District Court in front of Judge Cameron and a jury on Wednesday, January 24, facing one charge of assaulting a child under Section 194 of the Crimes Act 1961.

On March 2, 2023, Jane Sowerby, also known as Janey, assaulted a six-year-old pupil on the grass area outside the reception block at Arataki School, according to court documents.

The teacher, who was initially due to appear in court on June 12, 2023, had entered a not guilty plea to the above charges.

Witnesses called by crown prosecutor Anna Pollett for the jury trial, were the child’s father; previous Arataki School principal Shelley Blakey, who resigned in May 2023 after a tenure of nine years at the school; the deputy principal Tania Solomona; and Detective Shaun Skedgwell, who in 2023 was working with the Child Protection Team.

At the time of the offence, Jane was employed as a full-time teacher at Arataki School, and the six-year-old pupil she assaulted was in her class.

On the day of the assault, March 2, 2023, the school was having a half-day with children due to go home at the end of the morning, court documents state.

The child’s father had cycled to the school to pick up his son, who he found seated with two other children outside the classroom. Unbeknown to him, his son and the two class mates were in ‘time out’ after engaging in rigorous play in the nearby mud pit that other children were playing in.

On seeing his father, the boy went indoors to the cloakroom to get his school bag.

Jane grabbed the boy’s arm, dragging him outside, where he resisted, following which she threw him to the ground and then held him down pressing on his arm and chest.

“He was ragdolled onto his back and [she] flipped him into a 180, his head went under his feet like a forward roll and he fell flat on his back and back of his head,” says his father.

“She then got onto her knees and held him down and he struggled against her and kicked her, trying to get away from her.  She got on top of him. She used unreasonable force. It was like when police are chasing an offender down, using that force to get him on the ground.”

At this point the father dropped his bike and ran over to see his son in extreme distress and in fight or flight, he shouted “Let him go, stop fighting him, you're going to make him worse”. The teacher is reported to have continued holding the child down.

“She was holding him down on the ground with her hands around his chest and shoulders area. He was fighting back in distress. He was terrified, and kicking and trying to get out. She was using her whole body to hold him down.”

Principal Shelly Blakey sent deputy principal Tania Solomona outside after seeing from her office window the child being taken by Jane by his wrist from the classroom across the grass area, and says he “looked upset flailing his arm” and “he couldn’t get out of the hold”.

“Something just didn’t look right. [The child] looked upset. It’s very rare to see if a teacher is in contact with a child, for the child to be upset,” says Shelley.

Tania, who had been in the principal’s office, says she went outside, and on seeing Jane holding the child to the ground asked her several times to take her hands off the child. Jane eventually released the pupil, who went straight to his father, crying, and holding on to his father’s leg.

While the deputy principal went out to see what was happening, Shelley continued watching from her office window.

“Janey pushed [the child] to the ground, he was struggling, so it would have been a lot of force used.  [The father] looked very angry,” says Shelley.

The father says his son was crying for the whole ride home until he felt comfortable and safe, and he and his wife took him to the doctor a couple of days later.

Shelley says following the incident she talked with the deputy principal about contacting the parents to get them back as soon as they could, told Jane to write down everything that had happened, started a school incident report, and sought advice externally from NZSTAR - the governance supporting body.

Jane was also asked to take a day off. 

Following this, she had five days off of paid leave from March 6-10 and was told to seek advice and support from NZEI.  The employment process was engaged and Police became involved.

On March 3, 2023, the parents wrote a letter to the school principal and to the chair of the school’s board of trustees. In the letter, they reminded Shelley that their son had had a significant head injury three to four years earlier in 2019, and that he was going through a process of being diagnosed with ADHD.

They say their son was prone to isolating and retreating into himself, and despite settling well into his first year of school in 2022, he hadn’t settled well yet into his new classroom with Jane.

In the letter to the school principal, the parents requested that Jane be removed from the classroom.

On March 4, 2023, the father made a statement to police.

The principal made a statement to police a month later on April 4, 2023, and then left Arataki School in May, taking up a CEO position for a social service agency.

On May 22, 2023, Jane was spoken to by police. The interview, which was recorded in the presence of Detective Shaun Skedgwell and her lawyer Rachael Adam, was played to the jury during the trial. During questioning she denies throwing the child to the ground and says they both fell to the ground due to “momentum”. 

During the interview, Jane says prior to the incident happening, she had seen the father had arrived on his bike at the school, and says that she was “attempting to guide [the child] to sit back down to then go to speak with his father”.

Jane Sowerby has been found guilty of child assault. Photo: Supplied.

She remembers the deputy principal repeatedly telling her to let the child go.

Prior to the incident, Jane had been the child’s teacher only 19 days, with the day of the incident being day 19.

Following the March 2, 2023 child assault incident, Jane has still been employed at Arataki Primary School until the date of the trial, but has been on suspension with pay since March 2023.

Jane says that early in her career she had experience with working with children who have neurodiversity, autism and Asperger's Syndrome while working as a teacher aide. She said at the trial that at the start of 2023, she knew [the victim] may have ADHD and that no formal diagnosis had been done yet. She also agreed with the crown prosecutor that the child was of small build, and had a tendency to withdraw into himself and isolate himself if he was experiencing any difficulty.

The jury retired for around two hours on Friday, January 26, before returning to give their guilty verdict.

The school's Board of Trustees chair was approached directly after the trial had finished, for comment, but says he had notified the Ministry of Education, and had to next notify the board of trustees and then follow the required process set by the ministry.

Jane Sowerby will be sentenced in Tauranga District Court on April 15.