Family who got dinner lady fired after she accidentally served their child gammon are emigrating to Muslim country

Zahid and Rumana Darr asked for Alison Waldock to be dismissed

Miss Waldock accidentally served pork, forbidden by Islam, to their daughter

The Darrs are now moving to the conservative UAE

Mistake: Alison Waldock wants to clear her name

The parents involved in the sacking of a school dinner lady who mistakenly served gammon to their daughter are to emigrate to a Muslim country.

Alison Waldock, 51, was accused of gross misconduct and says she lost her job after Zahid and Rumana Darr asked that she be dismissed.



Today it can be revealed that Mr and Mrs Darr and their three children are emigrating to the United Arab Emirates later this month. The family have chosen to move from their home in Cambridge to Sharjah, where alcohol is banned and there are the strictest decency laws in the emirates.



Mrs Darr, 33, wrote on her Facebook page: ‘So we’re leaving the country end of August for good … We’re moving to Sharjah. We want to go relax in a nice hot Muslim country where the kids know their identities as Muslims.’



The move comes after Mr Darr’s recruitment firm was closed down in June when he was found to be working as a company director illegally.



Following an investigation by the Insolvency Service, he was banned from holding company directorships after he was caught pocketing over £500,000 owed in tax in 2008.



His firm Interecruit (UK) went into liquidation after Mr Darr, 36, ‘diverted’ money owed to the taxman in VAT, income tax and national insurance to another of his companies.



The nine-year ban was imposed in February 2011 but in May this year he was found to be operating a similar company named Interecruit (GB), which supplied agricultural workers.

As well as working as a director when disqualified, Mr Darr was not paying staff the minimum wage and failing to provide holiday pay. He had his gangmaster’s licence revoked by the licensing authority.



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Miss Waldock was sacked from her job as a dinner lady at Queen Edith Primary School in Cambridge after giving pork to a muslim pupil by mistake

Yesterday Miss Waldock said she does not want to return to the canteen at Queen Edith Primary School in Cambridge, where she had worked for 11 years, even if she is reinstated by Lunchtime UK, which runs the service.

She told the Mail: ‘I’m just hoping to clear my name. I wouldn’t want my job back – look at the way I have been treated. I could not work for that company again and could not be in the school environment. It would be uncomfortable.’

Long service: Miss Waldock worked at the school for 11 years before she was sacked over the mistake

Miss Waldock served the gammon meal after the seven-year-old pupil pointed to it. The school’s headteacher spotted the mistake and stepped in before the girl ate any of the meat, which is banned under her religion.

The dinner lady said she had previously warned the school that it was impossible to keep track of the various dietary requirements of the 200 children eating in the canteen.



She suggested that children at the school, where the proportion of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds is ‘well above average’, wore wristbands to show what they could eat, but this was rejected.



She said: ‘I had gone to the school and said, “Look, we need to have bands or something physical that we can see, rather than just a list of names”.



But they said no, because they said that would brand children and show that they are different.



‘They said that would lead to segregation, but if all the children were wearing bands it would not be a problem.’

She accused the school and the company of not providing enough training.



‘When the halal meat came into the kitchen, they did not say Muslims cannot eat pork of any type,’ she said. ‘We could have had training on this, but they did not do anything. I have not been educated on different religions, I am cooking the food in the kitchen.’



Yesterday no one was available for comment at Mr and Mrs Darr’s £635,000 detached six-bedroom house.



Mrs Darr said they pursued the complaint because they were told Miss Waldock ‘wasn’t bothered’ by the mistake. Miss Waldock said this is not true.

Watch interview in full on ITV