Hearing told youth worker rubbed thigh of young girl

A MARRIED youth worker put his hand on a child's thigh and rubbed it during an unofficial meeting with her in his van.

- ABBIE WIGHTWICK

Francois Hanson, who worked for Neath Port Talbot Council youth team, also sent the girl, who was under 16, sexually explicit messages, a professional standards committee was told.

In one he told her he needed “a friend with benefits” He also told the child she needn’t worry about having children with him “because I've had the snip”, the Education Workforce Council Wales panel heard.

The girl, identified only as Child A, was taking exams at the time and having problems at home. She told the panel that initially she had wanted Hanson to be her youth worker but then his messages began to make her feel “uncomfortable”

Hanson, who nicknamed her “chicken nugget”, started being “inappropriate” just weeks after being allocated as her local authority youth worker, the hearing, held remotely on June 3, was told.

Giving evidence the girl, now a young woman, recalled that the married man and father began to drive her home in his van alone. He would park at the top of her street where they would sit and talk for hours several times a week. It was on one of these occasions that he rubbed her thigh.