A teacher who sued Riara Group of Schools for unfair dismissal has been vindicated by the Employment and Labour Relations court which ruled in his favour.
Apollo Amanya was fired by Riara Group of Schools for emailing pornographic content to senior members of staff on two occasions.
Amanya had been hired on June 10, 2019, and worked until March 18, 2021, when his contract was terminated for sharing nude pictures in breach of the school’s e-learning policy.
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He moved to court to sue his former employer for unfair dismissal.
In their mitigation, the school told the court that Amanya had between February 24 and 25, 2021, sent unsolicited pornographic materials to several senior members of staff.
The school stated that the sharing of pornographic content was in contravention of its e-learning guidelines which Amanya was aware of.
In his defence, Amanya told the court that his email had been hacked and that he reported the matter to the police after he learned of the intrusion.
But despite changing the password, another set of images was circulated from the same email account on February 26, 2021.
The teacher said the offensive images were transmitted through his email account from the ICT lab.
Amanya further noted that he was in class and someone other than him must have been behind the circulation of the images.
The teacher reported the intrusion into his account on March 19, 2021, a day after he had been taken through the school’s disciplinary process and terminated.
Justice Bernard Manani in his ruling found that although the teacher was culpable of circulating obscene images the process of dismissing him was unfair.
Manani said the defendant ought to have accorded the teacher a fair hearing before dismissing him from his job.
He added that though the school had a valid reason to terminate Amanya’s contract of employment, the school failed to convince the court that it upheld the requirements of due process in terminating his job.
Manani awarded the teacher Ksh110,000 - an amount equivalent to his salary for two months as compensation for wrongful termination.
The compensation was on account of failure to accord him a fair hearing notwithstanding his apparent transgressions.
