Lawson v the Governing Body of Aylesford School & Anr
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE TOMLINSON
- LORD JUSTICE KITCHIN
- LORD JUSTICE UNDERHILL
Areas of Law
- Employment Law
- Civil Procedure
- Evidence Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Mrs. Samantha Burmis, a teacher at Aylesford School, was dismissed in 2004 and initiated proceedings for unfair dismissal, victimisation, and discrimination. She was later found to have lied about her criminal record, leading to a revocation of the initial judgment against her on procedural grounds. The appellant sought an appeal against the factual findings, but the court dismissed the appeal, ruling that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain an appeal where the underlying order had already been revoked.
J U D G M E N T
LORD JUSTICE UNDERHILL: This is, remarkably, an appeal against a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (His Honour Judge Peter Clark presiding) given as long ago as 3 October 2008. The background and the procedural history are complicated but for present purposes I can summarise them as follows.
The respondent to this appeal, Mrs Samantha Burmis (to whom I will refer as the claimant), was employed as a teacher at Aylesford School in Kent in 2001. She was asked as part of the appointment process whether she had any criminal convictions and she said she had not. That was untrue. She had in 1995 pleaded guilty in the Crown Court to one count of obtaining property by deception, one of attempting to do so and one of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. She was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. To anticipate, I should also say that she was in 2012 prosecuted for concealing those offences when she applied for employment at Aylesford School, and also for a serious offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice. On 1 July 2013 she was convicted of those offences and on 2 August she was sent to prison for two years. She was released on home detention curfew about a fortnight ago.
To return to her employment at Aylesford, the claimant was dismissed with effect from June 2004 following allegations of misbehaviour, in which other colleagues were also involved, on a school trip. She brought proceedings in the Employment Tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal, victimisation and race and sex discrimination. The respondents to the proceedings were the school and, as regards the discrimination claims, a colleague, Mr Grosvenor, and the then acting headteacher, Mr Lawson, who is the appellant before us. It was part of her case that she had been the victim of sexual and racial harassment by Mr Grosvenor at earlier stages of her employment and that she had been included amongst those disciplined for what went wrong on the school trip because she had complained about Mr Grosvenor's conduct.
The claims were heard before an Employment Tribunal at Ashford for no fewer than 40 days between 7 November 2005 and 13 October 2006. The Tribunal's decision was reserved and a judgment was not sent to the parties until 11 October 2007. A great majority of the claimant's claims were upheld. Those against the appellant were stated in the judgment proper at paragraph 12 as follows:
"12. The third respondent unlawfully directly discriminated and victim