A Nigerian teacher based in the United Kingdom, Elizabeth Adeagbo, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 14 after being convicted of assaulting a toddler by holding him with one hand.
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Our correspondent learnt on Tuesday from a report by the Daily Mail that the incident occurred on April 16, 2025, at a nursery.
The report noted that the 29-year-old teacher was arraigned before Sefton Magistrates’ Court, where it was revealed during the trial that the child had grabbed Adeagbo’s trouser leg while seeking her attention.
The report continued, “Adeagbo, an agency worker employed via the Teaching Personnel agency, was washing breakfast dishes in the sink at the time.
“She said she picked the child up by his arm because she ‘didn’t want to soak him’ with her wet apron.
“In CCTV footage from the nursery, which was shown in court, the young boy is crying after he is carried across the room by his left arm. Hours later, when his mother picked him up at lunchtime, he was in tears, the court was told.”
The report noted that Adeagbo, who had a 17-month-old son at the time of the incident, said she intended to remove the ‘wet apron’ with her other arm while carrying the child.
According to the report, the prosecutor, Edward Handley, said, “Adeagbo lifted the boy ‘like a bag of rubbish for the night-time collection’ as she carried him across the room, knowing it was an inappropriate way of lifting a child.”
Her defence counsel, Caleb Suggitt, was said to have told the court that Adeagbo had worked at two prior nurseries through the agency before the incident and had also worked with children in Nigeria, with no previous complaints.
“Adeagbo is an experienced childcare assistant. She now recognises it was not the most appropriate way to pick up a child and shows obvious remorse. It was never her intention to harm a child,” Suggitt was quoted as saying.
It added that following her conviction after the trial on Friday, Adeagbo is scheduled to be sentenced at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on May 14.
According to the report, the toddler’s mother said she found out what happened after receiving a phone call from the nursery hours after the incident.
“I couldn’t process what they were saying. She was trying to explain that he had been inappropriately handled by an agency member of staff, but I couldn’t understand. I just had to get there and see him, to see that he was okay.
“I took him to A&E, and thankfully, there was no physical harm, but it was so scary. There was so much going on afterwards, too,” the mother was quoted as saying.
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