An Employment Tribunal (ET) has ruled that a university professor who submitted a promotion application which included the dean’s signature without authorisation was not unfairly dismissed.
The professor had begun working for the university in 2013. She had applied for promotion during the 2020/2021 academic year. However, her department’s promotions committee did not support the application, and the dean of the university had provided a statement saying that there was insufficient evidence that the promotion criteria were met.
In January 2023, the professor submitted a further application for promotion, accompanied by a different statement which was supportive of her application. It transpired that the application had been submitted without the dean’s knowledge or permission. A disciplinary investigation was opened into allegations that the professor had fraudulently falsified the statement and had used the dean’s signature to endorse her application. After being rescheduled a number of times because of the professor being on sick leave and because she had raised grievances, a disciplinary hearing was held which resulted in her being dismissed for gross misconduct. She brought a complaint of unfair dismissal to the ET.
The ET observed that the professor’s explanation at the ET hearing as to how the statement accompanying her second promotion application had come into existence was in marked contrast to the previous occasions on which the matter had been addressed. She claimed that the dean had in fact sent an email containing the statement, from which she had merely cut and pasted the contents. However, she was unable to give any satisfactory explanation as to why the email had never been referred to, much less produced, at any stage of the investigatory, disciplinary or appeal processes. The ET was driven to the conclusion that she could not be considered a reliable witness.
The ET found that the university had discharged the burden of showing that it had believed her to be guilty of misconduct. The disciplinary outcome letter had stated that it was clear that she had provided a statement that had incorrectly indicated departmental support for her promotion application. That represented a falsification of records and fraudulent activity. There had been both ample and reasonable grounds for the university to conclude that the misconduct had occurred as alleged, not least from the professor’s own evidence given at the investigatory and disciplinary hearings.
The ET concluded that the decision to dismiss was plainly within the range of reasonable responses open to a reasonable employer. The professor, a relatively senior academic, had been found to have committed serious misconduct and breached the trust and confidence between her and the university by making a fraudulent statement and by using the dean’s signature without his permission.
