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A postman has been given compensation after he was found to have been unfairly dismissed.
Graham Harvey, 59, was caught on camera taking chewing gum out of his mouth and putting it on a lantern on a garden gate.
The homeowner complained and he was fired by Royal Mail, where he had worked for 25 years.
However, an employment tribunal found that while his behaviour was not acceptable, what he did was not a sackable offence.
As such, they awarded him over £17,000 in compensation.
The complainant sent CCTV footage to Mr Harvey’s manager in October 2020. He said it was disgusting but that he and his wife did not want to ‘make a huge fuss about this’.
The video also showed he was not wearing a seatbelt and left items on his passenger seat.
The following Monday, his boss, Jordan Cree, asked for a word in his office and he was suspended for having ‘defaced a customer’s property’.
Mr Harvey admitted that what he did was wrong and said it had been a stupid decision, offering to apologise.
The tribunal heard he was sacked at the end of the meeting after bosses ruled all three offences constituted gross misconduct.
He lost an internal appeal in which another manager said it was a ‘deliberate act on [Mr Harvey’s] part to cause anxiety and distress’.
Employment Judge Ronald Mackay ruled the dismissal was unfair, as not wearing a seatbelt and leaving mail on the passenger seat were ‘common practices’ known to management, while the chewing gum issue was not serious enough to be deemed gross misconduct.
Royal Mail bosses told the tribunal that they believed Mr Harvey should be treated more harshly given that with his length of service he should have known the rules.
Criticising this approach, Judge Mackay said: ‘To dismiss, for a first offence, an employee with a clean record and 25 years service, should not have been approached with that mind-set.’
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