The social worker had been with a police officer looking after an eight-year-old child from a property in Rue De La Perruque, Castel, near the home of 22-year-old Kalisha Reynolds.
She came out of her house and told the woman that she did not like the way she was treating the child.
Reynolds was confrontational. She was told to go back inside but she threatened to head-butt the social worker. She went back to her doorway and shouted the racist insult.
Nothing was done at the time, since the child was the priority, but Reynolds was later arrested.
Reynolds told police she was not normally an aggressive or violent person but the social worker’s behaviour in speaking to the child had upset her.
In a victim impact statement read to the court by Crown Advocate Fiona Russell, prosecuting, the civil servant said that in 60 years she had never experienced such a level of hatred.
Reynolds’ abuse in front of the child had led to that child now using those words herself.
In the Magistrate’s Court Reynolds admitted using threatening or abusive words against the woman.
Defending Advocate Samuel Steel said she wanted to apologise wholeheartedly for her aggressive, abusive and racist behaviour and for the upset and trauma she had caused to the victim.
In the heat of the moment she had used the most hurtful word she could think of, but she did not view anyone with a different skin colour as being inferior to her.
She had previously had dealings with other social workers and had experienced more than her fair share of trauma growing up, he said.
The probation report had given some cause for optimism because she had set out to try to regulate her emotions.
Judge Gary Perry said Reynolds was the second person he had dealt with in one court sitting who had sought to interfere in an aggressive way with a public servant going about their duty.
She had jumped in without the full picture of what was happening.
He was particularly concerned that she did not see her behaviour as racist in spite of what she had said to the social worker.
‘Until you recognise that you have racist beliefs you will not be able to address them,’ he told Reynolds.
‘Imagine if your young children had been there and heard it – they would have started using this language and just perpetuated this appalling behaviour.’
Only the fact that she had not been in trouble before and had young children prevented her going to prison, he said.
She was ordered to perform 120 hours of community service as an alternative to three months in prison, and made subject to a one-year probation order.
