Teacher sent away by employers for covering body in tattoos

A teaching assistant was sent away from her first day of her new job at a Catholic school because her arms and neck are covered in tattoos.

Mother-of-two, Charlotte Tumilty had been offered the role at St. John Vianney’s Primary School in Hartlepool as part of her teacher training course. But within an hour of turning up for her first day, she claims she was sent home because of her body art and she insists she cannot cover up the tattoos in order to return to the school.

The 26-year-old says that she was told the tattoos on her feet, hands and neck were unacceptable because the school is ‘strict Catholic’ and that they were ‘inappropriate’.


However, the school insists that Tumilty was only told to consider ‘covering’ up her tattoos so she could return to her placement later. But she says she is unable to cover them all up and there are no other placements available at other schools.

She said: “It ticks me off. They said I could maybe start later but I don’t think it’s going to get anywhere because you can still see bits of my tattoos. They prejudiced me because they could see a few tattoos.”

Tumilty is currently on a level two teacher training course at Hartlepool College of Further Education and was due to work at the school twice a week for a year.

She has a ‘full sleeve’ of tattoos on her arms and legs, smaller inkings on her fingers, hands, back and chest and an eye emblem on her neck.

The school is under the control of Hartlepool Borough Council but the local authority say that schools in their area are free to decide their own policy on tattoos . Many employers have strict policies on tattoos from complete bans on inkings to having them covered while in the workplace.

Under current legislation people with tattoos are not covered by the Equality Act 2010. Earlier this year a business executive was sacked from her job after having an inking of a butterfly design on her foot.

Jo Perkins, 38, had the design on the side of her left foot when she started working for multi-million pound firm Salisbury FM.

But after she started work, bosses brought in a ‘no tattoos on show’ rule – and terminated Miss Perkins’s contract when she could not cover up her inking.

Similarly, Larissa Westcott says she was having a job interview with British Airways when she was told her application wouldn’t be taken any further because of a tattoo on her foot.

However, earlier this month, the army announced that it was lifting its ban on hand and neck tattoos in a bid to draw in more recruits. Previous strict rules restricting art on visible parts of the body meant a number of potential soldiers had to be turned away.

But a change to the regulations means that designs are allowed providing they are not visible in a passport-style photo when the soldier’s top button is undone on an open-necked shirt.