Mr J Hollywood v Governing Body of Northwood Community Primary School

Head unfairly dismissed for hiring teacher banned over misconduct with 15 year old pupil

Jason Hollywood was headteacher of Northwood Community Primary School in Kirkby for nearly six years.

In 2019 he engaged a former music teacher “CXH” to help cover a short run of sessions ahead of an Easter performance. CXH was subject to a Prohibition Order following very serious misconduct in 2012, contact of a sexually motivated nature with a vulnerable 15 year old pupil. Mr Hollywood checked with the Teaching Regulation Agency first and was told CXH could work under supervision. He was engaged for nine sessions, always accompanied, and the performance went ahead without incident.

Months later, a colleague found the Prohibition Order online. Hollywood was suspended, investigated, and summarily dismissed for gross misconduct. The Employment Tribunal ruled that dismissal was unfair.
 
The investigation didn’t hold up
 
The tribunal accepted the school genuinely and reasonably believed Mr Hollywood had mishandled the reputational risk of the engagement. But it found the investigation itself fell well short of what a case with these stakes demanded:
 
– The investigating officer was “accusatorial” rather than even handed in her approach, and the flaws in her report were not minor.
– She attributed answers to a witness that the witness said she had never given, and changed the order of that witness’s responses.
– She led other interviewees toward answers that were prejudicial to Mr Hollywood.
– She did not seek out evidence that might have helped him.
– The disciplinary panel accepted her report without proper scrutiny of these issues.
– No policy required a written risk assessment for engaging a non-employee, yet its absence was held against him.
– Neither the disciplinary panel nor the appeal panel appears to have properly considered any sanction short of dismissal, despite Hollywood’s clean record and contribution to the school.
– The appeal panel was not even given the notes of the disciplinary hearing it was supposed to be reviewing.
 
Lessons
 
A genuine and reasonable belief in misconduct is not, on its own, enough. The investigation that produces it has to be fair too.
– Investigators must test the evidence, not build a case.
– Record what a witness actually says in a verbatim, recorded transcript.
– Leading questions taint the process that relies on them.
– Even where safeguarding is genuinely at stake, a reasonable employer still has to consider whether dismissal is the only fair response.
– An appeal cannot properly review a decision it has not been shown the full material for.
 

Mr J Hollywood v Governing Body of Northwood Community Primary School: 2408746/2020

Judgment: https://lnkd.in/gntUzJ7W