Top English teacher sacked for showing 18-rated horror movie to 15-year-old pupils gets £600k discrimination compo
The teacher admitted he had made a "poor choice" when he showed the class of 15-year-olds the 18-rated horror movie
A teacher sacked after showing horror film, Halloween, to a class of teenagers has won more than £600,000 compensation for disability discrimination.
Head of English, Philip Grosset, 47, conquered Cystic Fibrosis to achieve wonders at the Joseph Rowntree School, in York.
But the teacher of 13 years admitted he had made a "poor choice" at a time of "extreme stress and ill health" when he showed the class of 15-year-olds the 18-rated horror movie in 2013 and was sacked for gross misconduct.
Mr Grosset accepted he had made "an error of judgment", but was sacked for gross misconduct by City of York Council.
Today, however, Appeal Court judges confirmed that he was a victim of disability discrimination and upheld his £646,663 damages payout.
Given his health problems, his workload should have been reduced and his expressions of remorse were sincere, ruled Lord Justice Sales.
The court heard Mr Grosset intended to "use the the film as a vehicle for discussion in the class about construction of narrative."
"He did not inform the school that he was going to use an 18-rated film for this purpose," said the judge.
"Nor did he obtain consent from the parents of the pupils concerned."
When he first joined the school in 2011, various "reasonable adjustments" were agreed to help him cope with his health difficulties.
The school's English teaching was then "in disarray", said the judge, but Mr Grosset "succeeded in turning round the fortunes of the department."
In the summer of 2013, the school achieved its best ever GCSE results, the court in London heard.
However from 2013 the school's performance focus moved from GCSE results to measurements of progress, which showed there were still problems with the English department, and Mr Grosset said that he was subjected to an ever-increasing workload and "could not cope".
On November 8, 2013, pupils sat their final GCSE exams and Mr Grosset took a small group of a dozen or so 15 to 16-year olds called the "nurture group" who "for one reason or another needed more attention than others".
Over two lessons with the group Mr Grosset showed the pupils the film Halloween, rated 18.
Three of the group had been or were involved in self-harming involving blades, with two having talked about suicide, though Mr Grosset said he didn't know any of this.
The tribunal heard that by the end of November his lung function was at its lowest it had ever been and he felt he could no longer remain at work.
He was suffering stress, which was impacting upon his lung function, and was eventually signed off from work for stress by a doctor.
While he was away Head Teacher Richard Crane covered his classes, discovered the horror film had been shown to the pupils and suspended Mr Grosset.
During the investigation Mr Grosset "accepted that showing the film had been inappropriate and regrettable but argued he had been affected by stress, contributed to by his cystic fibrosis".
A disciplinary hearing by the school found him guilty of showing an X-rated film with scenes of extreme violence to a class of 15- and 16-year-olds.
This breached the British Board of Film Classification recommendations, by showing the film without obtaining parental consent.
Mr Grosset was also found guilty of breaching the school's safeguarding policy.
Following the decision he was dismissed from the school in December 2013.
The employment tribunal concluded the dismissal: "Was plainly an act of unfavourable treatment".
It added: "Having regard to the medical evidence before it the ET further found that the Claimant had shown the film when suffering from an impaired mental state such that errors of judgement might be anticipated.
"Specifically, it was more likely than not that the Claimant had made the error of judgement in selecting Halloween as a result of the stress he was under; it was not an error he would otherwise have made and, in very large part, that stress arose from his disability."
Mr Grosset had to stick to a gruelling daily exercise regime because of his illness, and feared that he might need lung transplants if his health collapsed.
After school bosses found out about the Halloween incident, he "accepted that showing the film was inappropriate" and an error of judgment.
But the council sacked him after refusing to accept that his expressions of regret and remorse were sincere.
Whilst rejecting some other complaints, an Employment Tribunal later found his dismissal had arisen from disability discrimination.
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Had he not been put under so much stress at work, he would have been "unlikely in the extreme" to have shown the film to his pupils.
Rejecting the council's appeal today, Lord Justice Sales, sitting with two other judges, said the tribunal had made no error of law.
It was entitled to conclude that summarily sacking Mr Grosset was "not proportionate" and there was "no good justification" for doing so.
The tribunal was also entitled to find that his "remorse and acceptance that he had acted wrongly in showing the film were genuine."
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