Teacher wins lawsuit against school that sacked him for sending porn to senior staff members

Opinionnaija.com
February 7, 2022

The Riara Group of Schools fired a teacher for twice sending pornographic emails to top staff members, and the Employment and Labour Relations Court of Kenya has found in her favour.

In violation of the school’s e-learning policy, Apollo Amanya, who was hired on June 10, 2019, was fired on March 18, 2021. In response to his wrongful discharge, he sued the institution.

Amanya delivered unsolicited pornographic images to numerous senior staff members between February 24 and 25, 2021, according to evidence presented in court by the school during the trial.

Amanya was aware of the school’s claim that disseminating pornographic material was against its e-learning policies.

However, defending himself in court, Amanya disclosed that his email was hacked and he reported the matter to the police after he learned of the intrusion. He further revealed that 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 was taken through the school?s disciplinary process and sacked.

Ruling on the case Justice Bernard Manani stated that though 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.