Commissioner split the allegations and found management partly to blame
A Sheriff's Officer was fired for time theft, but a NSW commission found his employer's management failures shielded him from most misconduct charges.
The Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales handed down its decision on 15 April 2026 in Tohi v Department of Communities and Justice, dismissing an unfair dismissal application brought by Solomone Tohi, a Sheriff's Officer in the Newcastle region terminated on 30 June 2025 after 11 years of service without a single prior disciplinary issue.
The case turned on seven allegations drawn from CCTV footage at Toronto Court House covering 20 December 2024 to 7 February 2025. Tohi was accused of failing to screen people entering the court on roughly 50 occasions, not wand-searching about 35 people who set off the walk-through metal detector, using his mobile phone at the screening area around 39 times, closing the security checkpoint early on two days while court was still sitting, recording inaccurate finish times on his flex sheets to gain approximately five hours and 17 minutes of flex time (later corrected to approximately four hours and 47 minutes after the Commissioner identified a calculating error), and through all of the above, putting court users, judiciary and colleagues at risk.
Tohi admitted to most of the conduct. He acknowledged letting court staff, police and lawyers through without full screening, saying it was based on a...
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