Old gross misconduct and forwarding pornography

Old gross misconduct and forwarding pornography

The High Court ruled last week that an employer could dismiss an employee for an act of Gross Misconduct over five years old.

The employee was a football manager, in fact he was manager of Leeds United. He was served notice of redundancy, and his notice was worth £200,000.

The employer, after serving notice, mounted a concerted effort to find misconduct, having the managers computer forensically analysed, and found that he had forwarded an offensive email over five years prior. He was sacked and lost his notice and redundancy.

The High Court ruled that because the employer did not know about it before, they could still sack, even after substantial time had passed. It did not matter that the employer had actually gone out of its way to look for misconduct. The email was offensive, could be harassment, and the manager held a senior position.

The case can be read in full at the following link:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2015/376.html

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