The Employment and Labour Relations court has ruled in favor of a teacher who was fired for emailing pornographic content to senior members of staff.
The Riara Group of Schools sacked Apollo Amanya in 2021 for sending porn on two occasions, between February 24 and 25, 2021.
Amanya, who had been hired on June 10, 2019, had his contract terminated on March 18, 2021, for sharing nude pictures in breach of the school’s e-learning policy.
The teacher however moved to court accusing his former employer of unfair dismissal.
In his defence, Amanya told the court that his email account had been hacked and he reported the matter to the police.
And despite changing his password, another set of explicit images was circulated from the same email account on February 26, 2021.
Apollo said the photos were transmitted through his email account from the ICT lab. He added that he was in class at the time and someone other than him must have shared the images.
The teacher reported the intrusion into his account on March 19, 2021, a day after he had been taken through the school’s disciplinary process and terminated.
In its ruling, the court found that although the teacher was culpable for circulating obscene images the process of dismissing him was unfair.
Justice Bernard Manani said the defendant ought to have accorded the teacher a fair hearing before dismissing him from his job.
The court noted that though the school had a valid reason to terminate Amanya’s contract of employment, the school failed to convince the court that it upheld the requirements of due process in terminating his job.
Manani awarded the teacher Sh110,000 – an amount equivalent to his salary for two months as compensation for wrongful termination.
