Headteacher wins discrimination case after school fired him for having sex with two 17-year-old boys
Matthew Aplin argued he was a victim of 'unfair dismissal and sexual orientation discrimination'
By Steve Brown
A headteacher has won a sexual discrimination case after he was fired from a primary school for having sex with two 17-year-old boys he met on Grindr.
Matthew Aplin, 42, was the headteacher at Tywyn Primary School, in West Glamorgan, but was reportedly fired after he had sex with two 17 year olds he met on the hook-up app.
But while police and the local authority decided he had not committed any offence, the school governors decided to dismiss him, the Telegraph reported.
Aplin challenged their decision but decided to resign and claimed that he was a victim of constructive dismissal and claimed he was a victim of ‘unfair dismissal and sexual orientation discrimination’.
He argued that what he had done was lawful and part of his private life and that the report was ‘biased and homophobic’.
The Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) found that the former headteacher would have been treated differently if he was a heterosexual male having sex with teenage girls.
The ruling states: “In considering whether there had been discrimination of the basis of sexual orientation, the ET constructed two hypothetical heterosexual comparators in Mr Aplin’s position, one being a man who had had sex with two 17 year old females and the other a woman who had had sex with two 17 year old males)… the failings were so substantial and wide ranging as to allow an inference to be drawn that there was a ‘particular reason’ for them which would not have applied to the hypothetical comparators in Mr Aplin’s position.”