education

Headteacher wrongly sacked over threesome with boys, 17, awarded £700,000

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Tribunal awarded Matthew Aplin £700,000 after he was wrongly dismissed after having a threesome (Picture: Google)

A primary school headteacher wrongly sacked after having sex with two 17-year-old boys he met through a gay dating app, has been awarded nearly £700,000 compensation by a tribunal.

Matthew Aplin, who was the head of Tywyn Primary School in Sandfields, Port Talbot in south Wales, met the teenagers at his home in August 2015.

He was suspended and disciplinary hearings, led by the school’s governors who cited concerns over safeguarding, were launched

Mr Aplin was then accused of ‘bringing the school into disrepute, conduct incompatible with the role of the headteacher both which seriously undermined the trust and confidence of the school in its headteacher.’

He has won an employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal and sexual orientation discrimination against the school, after being sacked in May, 2016 but the decision was appealed.

The school said his behaviour brought the school into disrepute (Picture: Google Maps)

Employment Appeals Tribunal upheld the original ruling and ordered Tywyn Primary School’s governing body to pay Mr Aplin more than £696,000.

The tribunal said: ‘His career shows the claimant to be an individual who was dedicated to working in the education sector and someone who was not only ambitious but effectively so.

‘The claimant was therefore a well-qualified and experienced school manager with extensive teaching experience.’

The school’s governors ‘acquiescence’ to the wishes of the local education authority was also singled out for criticism.

‘In short, they saw that the LEA appeared to want a dismissal and acquiesced in that’, the tribunal said, but said Mr Aplin would not have been treated any differently by the governors if he was heterosexual.

‘The decision makers did not feel competent to address matters and wanted to rely on the ‘experts’, the tribunal said.

‘Had the presentation of the case against a comparator been carried out in a similar fashion, we are of the view that the decision makers would equally have abdicated responsibility to those who they saw as having the expertise and qualifications to make the relevant decisions.’

Mr Aplin has since found new full-time employment hard to come by. Since September last year, he has been working as a teacher at a primary school in the Merthyr area on a series of temporary contracts, the tribunal said.

The ruling added: ‘We came to the conclusion that given his existing experience he would be likely to return eventually to a headteacher role and that he would do so more quickly than he did previously because of his experience.

‘Doing the best that we can, we view that this would take up to 10 years. We do not consider that there is a significant prospect that the claimant would become unemployed although the current role is temporary that has been extended on a number of contracts.

‘This reflects how well the claimant is thought of and points to a continuation of employment or a very favourable reference at the least.

‘We concluded that he would progress through leadership roles to reach the position of headteacher.’



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