This case is an example of an employer that needed to deal with the extremely difficult issue of having a disciplinary matter pending against a member of staff on maternity leave.
The Supreme Court has held that it was not a breach of a teaching assistant's human rights to refuse him the right to be accompanied by a lawyer at a disciplinary hearing to address an allegation of acting inappropriately towards a pupil.
In this unusual case, an employee was dismissed and offered reinstatement on appeal, before purportedly resigning due to the terms of the reinstatement.
The High Court has held that art.6 of the European Convention on Human Rights was not engaged in internal disciplinary proceedings where the employee was not, as a result, deprived of the right to practise his profession.
In this case, the employment tribunal held that an employer placed too much emphasis on an employee's "flippant" and "sarcastic" attitude during a disciplinary hearing and failed properly to consider the flaws in the evidence against him.
Employers faced with an employee who has been convicted of a criminal offence outside work must look at all the circumstances and still follow their usual disciplinary procedure before making a decision to dismiss, as this tribunal judgment shows.
A family-run business made the classic mistake of having one person act as "judge, jury and executioner" in a disciplinary procedure against an employee accused of misconduct.