What happened
Danuska Pullia, 47, was a teaching assistant at a school in Sittingbourne for pupils with special educational needs. Per BBC News’ report of 11 May 2026, what Kent Police investigated ran from September 2021 to July 2023: hitting, pinching and spitting at pupils.
Kent Police began after colleagues saw it. Interviewed voluntarily in July 2023, she denied most of the allegations but admitted spitting at a child who had spat at her (“I can’t remember why I did it”) and pinching a pupil’s nose to get food out of his mouth.
Asked what training she had that made her think pinching a child was acceptable, she answered “none”, per ITV News Meridian.
Charged in December 2023 with four counts of child cruelty, she pleaded not guilty; a jury at Maidstone Crown Court unanimously convicted her on all four.
The outcome
Pullia was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court on 8 May 2026 to four years, per ITV News Meridian.
Det Con Hollie Kent of Kent Police said Pullia had “utterly failed” in her duty to “vulnerable children”, and that many of her victims “weren’t able to speak out for themselves”.
Kent County Council said all required pre-employment checks had been carried out.
What went wrong
This was not restraint. Nothing in the account is an attempt to keep a child safe. Hitting, pinching and spitting are assaults, and the criminal law said so four times.
The nose-pinching is where this case meets restraint practice. Getting food out of a child’s mouth is a real task in special schools, and where a pupil cannot manage it unaided it needs a written plan, trained staff and a record. Instead it was improvised on a child’s face.
Detection came from colleagues, not from a log or a review: other adults saw it and went to the police. The safeguard that worked was a person, and it worked late.
Her account shows the drift: she could describe precisely what the child did to her, twice, and not what she decided to do in return.
What it teaches
Training holds a line around a child’s body: what you may do, for how long, and for what purpose, written down and agreed. Where it is not taught explicitly, staff improvise near it, and some of what they improvise is cruelty.
Response in kind is the failure worth naming out loud: a pupil spits or bites and the instinct is to give it back. Children who cannot speak cannot report you, so a colleague’s challenge is a safeguarding duty, not a matter of character.
Questions for the room
- Who in your school would notice if a colleague’s handling of a pupil changed, and who would say so?
- A pupil spits at you. What is your trained response, where is it written down, and could you show it to an inspector?
- For pupils who need hands-on help at mealtimes, what is the written plan, and who reviews it?
Evidence and limits
BBC News’ and ITV News Meridian’s reports of 11 May 2026 were read live on 7 November 2026 and carry the conviction and the sentence. Sky News reported it the same day but returns 403 to automated fetches.
She is named because she was convicted and imprisoned. No pupil is named or described, and no age, class or condition is given. The school is not named; the reporting does not name it, and naming it would point to the children.
Gaps: the trial is given only as “in November”, and the reports do not say how many pupils were involved.
Our physical intervention training covers what to do when a pupil spits or bites, and why the answer is never the same act returned.
Sources
- BBC News, 11 May 2026 · https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2jyn55k5o
- ITV News Meridian, 11 May 2026 · https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2026-05-11/teaching-assistant-jailed-after-hitting-pinching-and-spitting-at-pupils
Reviewed 7 November 2026.