Forced to resign from NHS job after allegations of advertising on adult websites

In 2015, a woman working for an NHS Trust was forced to resign under threat of immediate dismissal for “behaving in a manner that would not be acceptable in any situation” and “bringing the Trust into disrepute” following allegations that she advertised services on adult websites.

Ms Molloy was a dedicated employee of the Trust for many years, had an excellent work record and had no contact with the public or patients in her administrator role. It was clear that her dismissal had been instigated for no other reason than moral judgement about her out of work activities.

Despite being humiliated, discriminated against and having her confidentiality breached, her trade union which she’d been a member of for eight years was reluctant to defend her, outrageously even siding with her employer and undermining her rights.

With Legal Action for Women (a grassroots legal service initiated by the ECP in 1982) we pressed her trade union rep to act. As a result, her case of constructive dismissal and compensation for loss of earnings, seniority and pension rights was taken up by a senior regional trade union rep who defended her against the unfair, unjust and discriminatory treatment from her employer.

In 2016, she won her case after a judge ruled that the Trust “did not undertake a proper disciplinary procedure”. Outrageously, he endorsed the view she had brought the Trust into disrepute and awarded her compensation only because the Trust had not followed the correct procedure? A poll by a local paper found 69% of people thought that she should have been allowed to keep her job.

Sacked NHS worker who led secret double life as porn star wins unfair dismissal case (Liverpool Echo, 22 August 2016)