The appellant school ICT teacher had hacked into the school’s computer system, in order, he said, to demonstrate its weakness. He appealed against rejection of his assertion that his dismissal was unfair for being caused by his protected disclosure. The EAT had found his dismissal not to have been from the protected disclosure, but from the hacking, and remitted the case.
Held: The employee’s appeal failed. What happened was not a disclosure: ‘The legislation uses a common word, ‘disclosure’, and sets out in some detail the circumstances in which that disclosure will or will not be protected. There is no reason to think that Parliament intended to add to that machinery by introducing some special meaning of the word disclosure.’ . . And ‘the warning was given for Mr Evans’s irresponsible conduct, and not for telling his employers, by whatever means, that their system was insecure. ‘
Judges:
Buxton, Lantham, Longmore LJJ
Citations:
[2006] EWCA Civ 1653, [2007] IRLR 140, [2007] ICR 641
Links:
Statutes:
Employment Rights Act 1996 43A
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
At EAT – Bolton School v Evans EAT 7-Feb-2006
EAT Public Interest Disclosure – Protected Disclosure. Employee deliberately broke into computer system to show that his concerns that information might be obtained in breach of the Data Protection Act was . .
Leave – Bolton School v Evans CA 9-May-2006
The claimant had been employed as an IT teacher. He was disciplined for testing the school’s computer system and revealing that it was open to abuse by hackers. He complained that this had been a qualifying protected disclosure under the 1996 Act. . .
Cited by:
Cited – NHS Manchester v Fecitt and Others CA 25-Oct-2011
The appellant challenged reversal by the EAT of a finding that it had not unlawfully victimised the respondents for the making of a protected disclosure. The claimant had reported a co-worker exaggerating his qualifications. After repeated . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 08 July 2022; Ref: scu.246989
