Postman sacked for sticking chewing gum to customer’s gate wins unfair dismissal claim

In the case of Mr G Harvey v Royal Mail Group Ltd Graham Harvey was a postman for more than 25 years. He was based at the Royal Mail’s Prestonpans office, near Edinburgh, and worked a primarily rural route. In October 2020 a customer visited the office to make a complaint about Mr Harvey saying that he had removed a piece of chewing gum from his mouth and placed it on a gate lantern at the property. The incident was captured on CCTV footage which was e-mailed to Mr Hanratty, the deputising manager, along with a photograph and a written version of the complaint. The customer’s email described the conduct as “disgusting”. He indicated that he (and his wife) did not wish to make a huge fuss about it.

Mr Harvey admitted to driving without a seat belt and leaving items of mail on his passenger seat but denied placing chewing gum on the customer’s premises. The tribunal heard he was suspended at the end of the meeting pending ‘further investigations into an alleged incident where you have defaced a customer’s property’.

A disciplinary meeting was held in October, when Mr Harvey admitted all of the allegations against him including the placing of chewing gum on the customer’s property. He described it as a ‘stupid decision’ and said he had done it ‘on two occasions at most’. He offered to apologise to the customer.

The tribunal heard he was sacked at the end of the meeting after bosses ruled all three offences were gross misconduct. He then lost an appeal with another manager saying he believed the chewing gum issue 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.