A NURSERY school began monitoring one of its teachers on CCTV after concerns over her “erratic” behaviour, a tribunal has heard.

An employment tribunal resumed this week into a case brought by teacher Alison Hilton against Treehouse Nursery in Wanstead.

Miss Hilton claims she was sexually harassed by company secretary, Paul Samouelle, who allegedly asked her to watch a pornographic film called “Jewish Girls Gone Wild” in the nursery office.

The teacher, who is Jewish and had worked at the nursery since 2009, also claims Mr Samoulle asked her to come to the nursery’s after school club with him, before miming the action of “bending her over a chair and gyrating his hips”.

However, the nursery denies the incidents, which supposedly took place in September 2014, ever happened.

Nursery bosses suspended Miss Hilton in October 2014 after a mobile phone was found in the pocket of her coat, which she was not wearing at the time. She was cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal investigation.

The teacher was being monitored on CCTV by nursery bosses at the time the phone was found. Her solicitors claim this was in an attempt to find ways to suspend her before she made a complaint about Mr Samouelle.

But the nursery’s head of operations, Mandy Peacock, said she watched Miss Hilton on CCTV before her suspension due to concerns over her behaviour.

Staff said the teacher had displayed 'odd' behaviour, such as repeatedly disinfecting tables and touching every child in her class on the top of the head as she walked past them.

Mrs Peacock said: “We used CCTV in a number of ways, we do use it to carry out observations in the rooms.

“We were looking at the CCTV in this case because we were concerned about Alison Hilton’s erratic behaviour.

“We had previously had meetings about it and we had other members of staff who refused to work with her.”

Rohina Omar, cross examining Mrs Peacock, said: “This is completely made up isn’t it?

“If this was the case, you would have said something about this before- if this was so concerning you had a meeting about it.

“You do not mention you had concerns about erratic behaviour in your witness statement.”

It is now up to the judge to make a final decision.