A prison officer has won reinstatement to his Invercargill Prison job after the Employment Relations Authority found he was unjustifiably dismissed.
The authority also ordered George Mitchinson be paid $48,196 in lost wages and $18,000 compensation.
Mr Mitchinson was employed as an instructor in the Corrections Inmate Employment
Unit (CIE) at Invercargill for six years before his employment was terminated on December 14 last year.
The Department of Corrections alleged Mr Mitchinson falsely declared a work-related injury to his left knee during a warm up to the control and restraint (C&R) training on August 2.
It said the alleged false declaration amounted to serious misconduct, justifying his dismissal.
But authority member Helen Doyle found the department's investigation was flawed.
She said it seemed the person who carried out the investigation and the person who had decided to dismiss Mr Mitchinson "had their minds turned against Mr Mitchinson so that matters in his favour were not considered or investigated properly and were simply dismissed or ignored".
"I do not find that a fair and reasonable employer would have been justified as a result of the flawed investigation into Mr Mitchinson's actions in concluding that there had been serious misconduct and that Mr Mitchinson had falsely declared a work injury," Ms Doyle said.
She ordered that Mr Mitchinson be reinstated on November 19 or such date as agreed both parties. She reserved the issue of costs.
- NZPA
