City of York Council has been ordered to pay a mental health practitioner more than £60,000 in compensation for wrongful dismissal following a flawed investigation into allegations he had made inappropriate and sexual remarks.
Mr Gormley was dismissed for gross misconduct in March 2023 after the council received a formal complaint about comments he was alleged to have made to colleagues.
The complainer, referred to as AG, claimed Gormley had commented on what AG had been wearing and told a “strange story” about a small boy falling back onto a poker while stoking a fire.
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It was also claimed Gormley said he thought AG was going to touch his knee when AG went to change gears while the two were in the car together.
AG also claimed Gormley had made comments about false allegations in relation to young victims of abuse, which AG said had upset a trainee they had been working with.
Gormley was suspended in October 2022 while an investigation took place. After a disciplinary hearing in March 2023, he was dismissed.
The dismissal letter said the council found Gormley had “engaged in behaviour including unwanted innuendo
and unwelcome jokes or comments that are sexist” and noted that a colleague had described him as a “misogynist”. Gormey’s appeal against the decision was not upheld.
However, the employment tribunal found that there was little or no evidence that AG felt vulnerable or offended by Gormley’s alleged comments, and that there was no reasonable conclusion that the telling of the story about the boy was sexual intimidation or bullying, as the council had argued.
The judgment says: “The investigation was not reasonable. The statements about innuendos and sexist remarks were lacking in specificity and largely generic. There were no follow-up questions to ask what innuendo or unwelcome jokes or comments had actually been made and in what circumstances they had been made.
“The claimant was a senior mental health professional with almost 23 years’ service with a clean disciplinary record. There was no evidence that these matters had been raised with the claimant in previous supervisions.
“The investigation was inadequate and unreasonable. The allegations of innuendo and inappropriate jokes and the allegation that he was a misogynist have been accepted without any reasonable investigation. The finding of gross misconduct was not formed on reasonable grounds after a reasonable investigation.
“The standard of the investigation and the decision to summarily dismiss was flawed and outside the band of reasonable responses.”
Gormley was awarded a total of £60,700 in compensation for wrongful dismissal and unfair dismissal, including a £34,300 net sum for pension loss.
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A spokesperson for the City of York Council said: “City of York Council aspires to be an employer of choice and is committed to treating all its employees with dignity and respect. It would be inappropriate to comment on any individual case.”
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