Fair dismissal for forwarding offensive email to client’s employee

In Gosden v Lifeline Project Ltd, a tribunal held that the employee had been fairly dismissed after he had distributed an offensive email from his home computer to a client’s employee which had damaged the company’s reputation.

Mr Gosden worked at Moorland Prison for Lifeline Project Ltd, a charity that helps to rehabilitate drug users. He received an email on his home computer saying:

“ Apparently, it is a sin for an Islamic male to see any woman other than his wife naked and that he must commit suicide if he does. So next Sunday at 4.00pm, all British women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out neighbourhood terrorists.”

The email also contained numerous images of naked women.

Mr Gosden forwarded this email on to the private home computer of a Prison Service employee, Mr Yates. Mr Yates forwarded it on to another employee of the Prison Service and so it entered its intranet. Yorkshire and Humberside Prison Service said that it did not want Mr Gosden back on any of its sites.

Although the email was sent outside working hours and on a private computer, the decision was made to dismiss Mr Gosden because he had damaged Lifeline Project Ltd’s reputation and his actions made further assignments for him within the prison community impossible.
 
The employment tribunal decided that a reasonable employer would be entitled to conclude that Mr Gosden had committed an act of gross misconduct that could damage the company’s reputation or integrity. One of Lifeline Project Ltd’s largest customers had formed the view that it had been content to employ a person who held discriminatory views that were contrary to its objectives and values. The dismissal was within the band of reasonable responses.