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Victorious whistleblowing prison officer - Tribunal hearing to consider damages & costs
01 April 2008
The female prison officer who successfully won claim for whistleblowing was today in court again so that the Tribunal could consider what the prison service should pay out to her in recognition of their failures. Ms Howie won her claim that she was subjected to detriment by H.M. Prison Service because she was a whistleblower. Emma Howie was victimised by the service because she had previously blown the whistle on wrongdoing at H.M.P Full Sutton and H.M.P Wakefield and today seeks compensation and costs. The Employment Tribunal found that the Prison Service had failed to take seriously an earlier whistleblowing claim at the same prison, despite heavy censure and having had to pay out nearly £500,000 compensation in that case.
Tribunal Award
After winning her important claim in January this year, Ms Howie’s has asked the Employment Tribunal to award compensation and costs.
Whistleblower
Ms Howie, a 35-year-old from Wakefield, joined the Prison Service in 1997. She was described by the Leeds Employment Tribunal as "a very competent prison officer at Wakefield, having been put forward for the National Prison Officer of the Year Award in 2003." Ms Howie was subjected to detriment after she was a witness in a successful and high profile whistleblowing case in December 2004 brought by Senior Officer Carol Lingard.
- Ms Lingard had brought the claim against the Prison Service for wrongdoing she witnessed at Wakefield Prison. She was subsequently awarded nearly £500,000 compensation and costs. Ms Howie was a witness in that case, giving evidence about the bullying of prisoners and of hostility to whistleblowers that was "directly material" to Ms Lingard’s claim.
- After the Lingard decision the Director General of the Prison Service, Mr Phil Wheatley, said the way Ms Lingard had been treated was "a regrettable and indefensible incident" and one which he did not "ever want to recur again at Wakefield or anywhere else."
- He said that Ms Lingard "was failed at every level in the organisation" and that the prison service needed "to learn the lessons and sharpen up our response to those sorts of complaints and be alert to the fact that when we receive complaints we must deal with them properly."
But as the Leeds Employment Tribunal have now noted, the Prison Service "uttered fine words but failed to carry those through into meaningful actions" – Wakefield Prison has again failed one of its officers.
Victimised
Ms Howie was victimised by other officers at Wakefield Prison as a consequence of giving evidence of wrongdoing at the prison. She raised a complaint to management about her treatment, and in particular that the Prison Officers Association branch secretary had deliberately leaked a confidential document about her in an attempt to promote hostility against her as a whistleblower. As a result, the Governor of Wakefield Prison launched an investigation. But, in a scathing judgment, the Tribunal found that the officer Ms Howie had accused "was effectively allowed to escape entirely free of punishment for seriously unacceptable conduct". The Tribunal also stated that they were "astonished" at the handling of the investigation into Ms Howie’s complaint.
The Employment Tribunal went on to find that the attempts to explain the handling of the investigation by H.M. Prison Service were "entirely inadequate" and that officers had "lied and deliberately lied". The Tribunal said they had "no difficulty whatsoever" in concluding that the reason for the handling and conclusion of the investigation was because Ms Howie was a whistleblower.
Response to the hearing
John Sturzaker, Ms Howie’s solicitor in the award-winning Employment Law Team at Russell Jones & Walker said:
"Emma Howie is a brave woman who has repeatedly done the right thing in the face of appalling pressure and has faced unacceptable hostility as a result. The Employment Tribunal has fully supported her claim and was clearly very troubled by what it heard, the more so given the findings in the Lingard case over three years ago. The judgment contains very serious messages about the treatment of whistleblowers and the way in which investigations into wrongdoing are conducted within the Prison Service which need to be acted upon as a matter of urgency."