X County Council & Anor v Miss D & Anor (Unfair Dismissal : Reasonableness of dismissal)

This is an employer�s appeal from the judgment of an Employment Tribunal sitting at Leicester, Employment Judge Sneath presiding, finding that the Claimants, school teachers who were dismissed for gross misconduct, were unfairly dismissed.

We will, for convenience, continue to refer to parties as Claimants and Respondents.� The First Respondent was the local education authority and the Second Respondent was the governing body of the school which employed the Claimants.

The Claimants represented themselves before the Tribunal and were represented by Mr Hyams of counsel, before us.� The Respondents were represented by Miss J Connolly, of counsel, before the Tribunal and by Mr Hignett, of counsel, before us.

The Claimants were drama teachers.� Ms C was head of the drama department.� They were responsible for supervising the writing, rehearsal, production and performance by 9 groups of GCSE students aged 15 and 16 years of a production for examination purposes.� The students prepared for the performance over a period of three to four months and spent about six to eight weeks in rehearsal.� In the case of two of the groups, which were Miss D�s groups, material was included in their production which was age inappropriate and included graphic descriptions of:

The Claimants were dismissed, by letters dated 30 July 2009 advising them that they were dismissed on the following grounds: