Does your boss own you 24 hours a day?

Coronation Street’s Craig Charles has been disciplined for alleged misdemeanours in his private life. But shouldn’t what you do in your own time be no one’s business but your own?

Employment lawyer Anthony Kay from Andersons Solicitors in Nottingham examines the uneasy relationship between responsibility to the firm and the right to a private life.

Craig Charles is the latest star to feel the cold wind of disapproval from his bosses for his behaviour away from the workplace. He was suspended from the show for allegedly misusing a Class A drug.

High profile cases like this and thousands of other less publicised examples raise the question of exactly what right does an employer have to dismiss someone for something that happens away from the workplace in the employee’s own time.

Employees might like to feel that what they do in their private life has got nothing to do with their boss but the reality is more complicated. The Employment Rights Act 1996 lists several potentially fair reasons for dismissal and then offers scope for a more general interpretation by saying a person can be dismissed for “some other substantial reason.”

The question then becomes what constitutes a substantial reason but there’s no doubt that it can include a person’s actions outside of work. An obvious and straightforward example would be something that prevents the person carrying out their duties.

If an employee has to drive as part of his work and then loses his licence for drink driving after a night out then that could be grounds for dismissal. The employer might have to explore ways to overcome the difficulty such as the use of public transport or find the employee other duties but if these remedies aren’t available or not practical then the firm could be justified in going ahead with dismissal.

Damaging the firm’s reputation is also likely to result in good grounds for dismissal. A clear cut case might arise if an employee has too much to drink on a Saturday night and then happens to meet an important client. If the employee then insults the client or alternatively starts criticise his own employers then that would clearly damage the firm’s reputation and could lead to dismissal.

Crimes or other misdemeanours committed outside work time are less clear cut. For example, an employee might be convicted of a drugs offence but that would not necessarily damage the firm’s reputation unless the public or the firm’s clients were likely to hear about it. That’s almost certainly going to happen in the case of celebrities who will attract widespread publicity, but it’s less clear cut with ordinary employees.

Unless the employers could show that the firm was likely to be damaged by association with the employee’s actions then it’s unlikely they could proceed with dismissal.

Employment tribunals are also prepared to take into account how the actions of one employee are likely to impact on other members of staff. Many may feel intimidated to be working alongside someone who has been convicted of a serious offence of violence. They may feel uncomfortable alongside a convicted thief or sex offender and a tribunal may well agree that their feelings amount to a justifiable reason for dismissal.

This is not a clear cut area of law because the challenge is always to try to reconcile a person’s right to treat his private life as his own with an employer’s right not to have his business damaged by association with a disgraced employee.

For that reason, each case will always have to be taken individually and the particular circumstances will always have to be examined and carefully assessed.

In the meantime, there remains an uneasy truce between the rights of the employer and the employee. Of course, a firm cannot expect to own its staff and control every little thing they do. On the other hand, the employee cannot simply switch off when he leaves work and imagine he’s free to behave however badly he likes.

Anthony Kay is an Associate Solicitor at Andersons Solicitors in Nottingham. He can be contacted on info@andersonsolicitors.co.uk or tel: 0115 988 6721.