Awarded £700k, primary school head sacked for threesome with 17-year-old boys

A PRIMARY school headmaster sacked after arranging a threesome with two 17-year- old boys using a dating app has been awarded nearly £700,000 by an employment tribunal.

Matthew Aplin, 42, won an unfair dismissal case claiming he had been the victim of homophobic discrimination.

Mr Aplin, who was head of Tywyn Primary School in Port Talbot, West Glamorgan, had a tryst with the two teenagers at his home in August 2015 after meeting them via Grindr.

But while police and local authority bosses decided no crime had been committed, the school governors decided to sack him.

Mr Aplin, a teacher for 19 years, challenged their decision before resigning, later mounting an employment tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal and discrimination on the basis of his sexuality.

He argued that his relationship with the two 17-year-olds was lawful and part of his private life, and that the management of the case had been ‘biased and homophobic’.

A tribunal ruled in his favour in March but the school appealed against the decision. The Employment Appeals Tribunal has now upheld the original decision. It found Mr Aplin would have been treated differently if he had been a heterosexual man having sex with two teenage girls, or a woman with two teenage boys.

The tribunal has now ordered the governing body of Tywyn Primary School to pay him more than £696,000 after a hearing in Cardiff last month.

The ruling said Mr Aplin was ‘dedicated to working in the education sector and someone who was not only ambitious but effectively so’.

However, he was initially unable to return to work because all appropriate jobs advertised were administered by the same Local Education Authority as his previous school. As a result, Mr Aplin had been unable to mitigate the loss he suffered because of his sacking, the tribunal found.

He was eventually able to find work on temporary contracts as a teacher at a primary school in another area but the tribunal ruled

‘He could have been disciplined’

that he ‘ should be compensated for all losses to date less the sums earned and benefits received’.

Mr Aplin claimed the right to a private life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

He was awarded £696,255.65 after a reduction of £100,000 because he could have been fairly dismissed without any discrimination.

The panel concluded there was ‘potential for reputational damage’ to the school as a result of Mr Aplin’s behaviour.

It said: ‘Headteachers have authority over children. If headteachers have sexual relationships with children it cannot be seen, without exploration of evidence, whether that authority is misused.

‘It is necessary to restrict the occasions when such sexual relationships arise so that confidence that headteachers will not exploit that authority can be maintained.

‘Therefore, we consider that it is possible to conclude that in the circumstances of this case the claimant could have been disciplined for his admitted conduct. However, a fair process would require the respondent to consider whether the claimant was aware that the individuals were 17.

‘Further it would have to consider what the real risk of the issues becoming public were and therefore what the real potential for reputational damage was.’

When it first sat in September 2017, the tribunal considering Mr Aplin’s case criticised the school’s investigating officer – who worked for Neath Port Talbot Council – for discriminating against him on the basis that he was gay. The officer was found to have produced a report ‘laden with judgments… which were hostile to Mr Aplin’, rather than being objective.