Parents accuse 'deaf' tutor

A tutor who has been teaching parents with deaf children how to use sign language has been accused of not completing lessons after being paid.

TRANSCRIPT

REPORTER: These parents started learning basic signing in October but now they are reduced to meeting in a Reading pub without a teacher. She disappeared with no clear explanation last month Exams they should have taken in May haven't been booked or paid for. Yet their teacher was given £4,000 upfront to hire a room, teach the class and get them through the exam.

PARENTS: Our son is profoundly deaf and I wanted to learn to sign so that when he gets older I can communicate with him better.

Obviously I'm very disappointed because I really wanted to carry on.

This leaves me in the lurch without any formal training or assistance to get that level of understanding built up.

REPORTER: Reading Deaf Children's Society used a donation to cover the cost of hiring freelance tutor Norma Armstrong, who trades under the name Sign Hands On, to take the course. It was only after Mrs Armstrong disappeared that the charity started asking questions and hearing of problems involving an earlier group of students.

LIZ SLOCOMBE, Reading Deaf Children's Society: The exam board haven't been paid so therefore they weren't going to have their certificates whether they had passed or not. We also then discovered our previous room hire hadn't been paid for.

REPORTER: Last month the Oakwood Centre in Woodley barred Mrs Armstrong from holding classes there saying it had been having trouble getting money owed for room hire. The same thing has happened at Reading Deaf Centre, itself a charity. Officials there declined to say how much they were out of pocket, but did confirm that Mrs Armstrong had falsely registered her business premises at their address, without the permission of the charity running it. BBC South has learned that sign language exams body Signature has a heavy casefile relating to Norma Armstrong and her company Sign Hands On. Hundreds of pounds in unpaid exam fees are outstanding and many former students have complained after failing their exams.

JIM EDWARDS, Signature: The bottom line is that she does owe us money. She hasn't done the job that we would have expected of any professional teacher of British Sign Language so from our point of view it's really important that people in the community have a good opportunity to learn BSL, they're given that opportunity. There are good teachers and those teachers work to high professional standards. That's not happened in this case and we want to make sure that wherever possible that doesn't happen again in the future.

REPORTER: Despite the complaints against her, Mrs Armstrong finally agreed to an interview. She denies owing exam or room hire fees or that she has done a runner with charity money. She said she intends to resume teaching as soon as possible.

NORMA ARMSTRONG: I e-mailed them very clearly and told them that I was ill, that I'd had a nervous breakdown. It was quite simple, I never said I was going to run away or that the class was going to collapse. Bad rumours have been circulating. I don't have a problem with communication. I think maybe there's been a breakdown in conversation somewhere. Maybe that's what happened but I don't think so. Basically the whole thing is a lie.

REPORTER: Regardless of her future as a teacher, parents who have stumbled on their road to learning sign language say it's their young children who are the real victims. Exams body Signature has said it will do all it can to find a new tutor for the Reading parents and waive the costs of taking the exam as and when they're ready.