A Canberra high school teacher sacked over inappropriate contact with students had won compensation after a Commission member found his dismissal harsh, but a Full Bench has quashed that ruling, finding she relied on evidence that was never formally admitted and misread the school's code of conduct.
What the Commission decided
Jack Gibson taught at an ACT public high school until he was dismissed in 2024 over conduct that included extensive social media contact with female students, driving them to non-school sporting events, and photographing them in an ice bath. Deputy President Dean found there was a valid reason for the dismissal but went on to hold that it was harsh, pointing to factors including Mr Gibson's remorse, the fact some contact happened with parental knowledge, and the risk his professional registration could be cancelled. She ordered the ACT Education Directorate to pay him compensation equivalent to several months' salary.
The Full Bench found two serious problems with that reasoning. First, the original decision stated that the mother of one student, referred to as Student 9, had given evidence supporting Mr Gibson. She had not. Her written statement was never tendered or admitted, and the ACT never got the chance to cross-examine her or even argue about whether it should be used. Despite this, the Deputy President summarised the content of that statement and relied on it to find that parents knew about and consented to Mr Gibson's contact with their children, a factor that helped tip the scales towards finding the dismissal harsh. The Full Bench held this denied the ACT a fair hearing on a significant point.
Second, the Deputy President had found that the school's rules on maintaining professional boundaries only applied to conduct involving actual sexual harassment or misconduct, because those clauses sat under a heading about sexual harassment. The Full Bench disagreed, reading the examples in the code, including taking students to coffee or the movies, or messaging them online, as a standalone standard that did not require any suggestion of sexual misconduct. It found the Deputy President wrongly left this out of her assessment of how serious Mr Gibson's conduct was.
What was actually in dispute
The ACT argued the original decision was riddled with problems, from mishandled evidence to a misreading of its code of conduct, and said permission to appeal should be granted because the outcome would affect how schools everywhere respond to boundary-crossing behaviour by staff. The Full Bench agreed it was in the public interest to hear the appeal, given the code's interpretation affects the whole public education sector and the procedural unfairness caused real injustice.
The Full Bench did not decide whether Mr Gibson's dismissal was ultimately fair. It declined the ACT's request to redetermine that question itself, noting the case turns heavily on assessing Mr Gibson's credibility, something better done by a single member hearing the evidence directly rather than a bench working from the papers.
What this means
The original decision has been quashed and the matter sent back to a single Commission member to decide afresh, unconstrained by any of the earlier findings. The case is a reminder that findings in unfair dismissal matters must be built on evidence actually before the Commission, and that employer conduct codes will be read according to their substance rather than just the heading they sit under. Readers wanting background on how the Commission weighs harshness and other factors in dismissal cases can see our unfair dismissal overview, and those curious about how compensation gets calculated can read more at compensation.