The Corrections Department has been ordered to reinstate a Manawatu Prison manager who was fired after an inmate died in a prison cell.
David Hotop was dismissed on July 15 after a year-long Corrections investigation. The Employment Relations Authority has ruled the dismissal was unjustified.
Mr Hotop was the rostered on-call manager on July 12 last year - the day the newly admitted inmate died.
The Corrections investigation argued that Mr Hotop had committed an act of "serious misconduct", because the inmate was placed only on 30-minute observations, instead of every 15 minutes after a risk assessment was carried out.
But Employment Relations Authority member Denis Asher ruled that Mr Hotop had met all specified requirements of the on-call manager.
Other staff had failed to meet requirements and convey "critically important" information to him.
"The department had sufficient confidence to keep in employment other staff it accepts breached those same requirements; it therefore cannot properly sustain a claim of lack of confidence."
He ordered the department to reinstate Mr Hotop to his former job and to pay him $15,000 compensation.
- NZPA
Fired jail boss reinstated
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