Essex primary school teaching assistant sacked over Facebook posts
A teaching assistant at a primary school and nursery in Southend was sacked due to Facebook posts that were reported to the institution by her colleagues. Nicola Cody was a teaching and learning assistant at Richmond Avenue Primary School and Nursery in Southend between 2003 and July 2021. Miss Cody lost an internal appeal to overturn the decision to fire her so took the case to an employment tribunal, where she was told the statutory time limit for an unfair dismissal case had passed.
Tribunal documents state Ms Cody posted about the school on May 17 last year in a which which was “found to amount to potential gross misconduct”. It adds that the teaching assistant’s profile was set to private, but among her 1,000 Facebook ‘friends’ were members of staff and parents of pupils of the school who would have had access to the posts. Several staff members reported the posts to the headteacher and an investigation found that she had a disciplinary case to answer for gross misconduct.
The contents of the teacher’s Facebook posts have not been disclosed. A disciplinary hearing was scheduled for July 14, 2021 but, on the morning of the hearing, Ms Cody’s trade union representative from the GMB said the union’s support was “being withdrawn”. Ms Cody was unable to attend the hearing herself due to medical conditions and she was served a letter of dismissal in her absence based on “serious acts of gross misconduct”.
An internal appeal hearing was held in November which upheld the decision and Ms Cody was served a letter on November 15. A claim was lodged with the employment tribunal on December 5, three weeks after being notified that her appeal had been dismissed. However, the statutory deadline to appeal to the court fell on October 30 – three months after receiving her initial letter of dismissal.
Ms Cody claimed she had been wrongly advised that the three month period to submit her case would begin after the internal appeal. Employment Judge Hallen concluded: “Although I have every sympathy for the Claimant and her stress and anxiety that she has suffered from for the past twenty years since the death of her father, I do not find that her illness had any material impact on her delay in lodging her Claim Form at the Tribunal. It should be noted that the Claimant was signed off work from 8 June 2021 which was before the disciplinary action commenced until 27 December 2021 which was after she lodged her Claim Form at the Tribunal.
“Her illness did not prevent her from taking an active part in the disciplinary process. Her stress and anxiety has been a condition that has existed for 20 years and she has managed to deal with it during this period. I accept that having to face a disciplinary process is a stressful experience for the Claimant as it if for most employees.
“However, in my finding, it did not have a material impact on this Claimant in understanding and dealing with what was happening to her. Indeed, even whilst she was signed off work on sick leave, she actively engaged in the disciplinary process from the outset, taking advice as she said from ACAS as well as from MS, her Trade Union (GMB) and another Trade Union when GMB would not represent her at the disciplinary hearing on 14 July 2021. Her illness did not prevent her from taking an active part in the disciplinary process or indeed at the appeal hearing on 12 November 2021 which she attended.”
The judge added: “In conclusion, the Claimant’s claims for unfair dismissal was presented out of time and the Tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear them.
Accordingly, the claim must be struck out.”