Ms Stewart was a senior official of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the United Kingdom, working in Kabul, Afghanistan.
In December 2021, Ms Stewart gave an interview as an anonymous source to Ms Kotecha, a journalist for BBC television show Newsnight, expressing concerns about what she considered were failings of the FCDO and UK government in the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Ms Stewart provided evidence to Ms Kotecha corroborating similar claims made by another employee (Mr Marshall). In January 2022, Ms Stewart supplied Ms Kotecha with screenshots of sensitive emails, but Ms Kotecha did not publish a story in respect of these emails.
On 27 January 2022, Ms Kotecha unintentionally tweeted images disclosing Ms Stewart’s identity. Following the FCDO’s discovery of Ms Stewart’s identity, the FCDO withdrew Ms Stewart’s security clearances, citing ‘significant concerns’ with Ms Stewart’s ‘honesty, integrity, judgment and discretion’ which were raised potential security risks see [66]). Ms Stewart unsuccessfully appealed this decision within the FCDO. On 22 June 2022, FCDO sent Ms Stewart a letter of termination on grounds that there were no available roles with her level of security clearance.
Ms Stewart made a claim that she had been unfairly dismissed by the FCDO under section 103A and/or section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA) UK.
Section 103A of the ERA
Under section 103A of the ERA, an employee is unfairly dismissed if...
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