Mr Stephens, a Halfords employee of long-service with a clean disciplinary record, was off sick with stress during a consultation over changes to shift patterns. He attended one consultation meeting, at which he was told discussions during the meeting were confidential but he misunderstood this instruction. He wanted to carry on discussing the proposed changes with other employees, so he set up a Facebook page called “Halfords workers against working three out of four weekends”.

Then he read his employer’s social networking policy warning that negative public statements about Halfords could result in disciplinary action, so he quickly deleted his Facebook page. But he was too late as his employer had already seen it. Mr Stephens explained he would not do it again and that he felt his judgment must have been impaired by his stress. He apologised unreservedly. Even so, he was summarily dismissed

The tribunal found his dismissal unfair and outside the range of reasonable responses available to an employer and he was awarded compensation of £11,350.

Stephens v Halfords PLC (ET/1700796/10) unreported