Humza Yousaf's wife drops legal action against nursery

It had previously said it would be "robustly defending our staff and our business" and accused the Ms El-Nakla and Mr Yousaf of waging "a vendetta against a small nursery".

Today the nursery announced today that the action against it, which began in November 2021, had been dropped.

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Usha Fowdar, owner of Little Scholars Day Nursery, Broughty Ferry, Dundee, said:

“Whilst we were 100 per cent prepared to see Ms El-Nakla in court, we are extremely pleased that this baseless legal action has been terminated. 

"It bears repeating that, despite some extremely misleading headlines and spurious allegations, the Care Inspectorate identified administrative processes for improvement which had nothing to do with discrimination, because there never was any discrimination. Any attempt to twist this fact should be called out for what it is.

“Ms El-Nakla has, very sensibly, opted to drop her legal action in the face of our determination to defend ourselves and our hard-working employees.

“While I’m pleased our employees will be spared the stress of appearing as witnesses, in one sense I’m also disappointed, as the court case would have been extremely revealing and I’m utterly confident we would have prevailed. 

"Despite this vindication, it has been deeply upsetting to have spent almost 18 months and tens of thousands of pounds defending our small nursery against their false claims."

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Mr Yousaf and Ms El-Nakla had applied for a place for their daughter at the nursery but were turned down with the facility claiming there was no space.

But just two days later a white friend of the couple was told there were spaces for her son on three afternoons every week.

Mr Yousaf then contacted the Daily Record which carried out a "sting operation" on the nursery by submitting fake queries from a Muslim family and white family, with the same results as before.

Ms Fowdar hit out: “It beggars belief that, rather than pick up the phone to quickly resolve what was a simple misunderstanding, they colluded in a half-baked sting operation and then mounted a vicious and cynical campaign against us in the national media. What sort of people do that?”

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Before Ms El-Nakla pursued the legal case, she and her husband couple made a formal complaint to the Care Inspectorate.

An investigation by the Care Inspectorate found the nursery “did not promote fairness, equality and respect when offering placements”.

It was ordered to introduce "consistent and robust" systems to manage admissions requests after a complaint was upheld.

In a statement released this afternoon Mr Yousaf and Ms El-Nakla's solicitor Aamer Anwar said the couple are loving parents who would do anything to protect their children.

“It was a tough decision, but as a mother and father they believe it’s the right one," said Mr Anwar. 

"They only ever wanted the nursery to accept the findings of the ‘Independent Care Inspectorate’ investigation and for the nursery to make changes.

"The nursery owner’s may wish to say that they were prepared 100% to go to court, but this was a joint agreement reached and on their acknowledgement of the findings of an independent investigation and implementing the necessary changes in full.

"The nursery by their own admission have acknowledged changes were required to make the admissions process more "transparent and equitable” and that is the very least any young child is entitled to expect from an educational establishment in Scotland, no matter who their parent is or whatever their background

"Nadia believes that as a mother she was justified in raising this legal action, she felt deeply hurt and hopes that as a result real change will take place.

"The matter is now at end and there will be no further comment.”