A man caught watching porn at work has received a payout of £6.3k (Image: Getty)
A man who was caught watching porn and masturbating in the office has won back his job and a £6,350 payout after a he had been dismissed unfairly.
Spanish company Trisquel Protección y Vigilancia SL discovered that the unnamed security guard had been watching on his work-issued phone by tracking it without his consent, judges said.
The man, who works in Spain’s northern , was fired by his bosses after being caught masturbating to porn while on shift, but has now been handed back his job and £6,350 (€7,501) in compensation.
“On its own, viewing sexual content during working hours on some occasions cannot be held to constitute a serious breach of contractual good faith and a culpable cause of the dismissal of the offending employee,” the High Court of Justice of Catalonia’s ruling stated.
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A court ordered the Spanish company to re-hire the security guard (Image: Getty)
“The company’s examination of the company mobile phone, accessing … private searches made on the internet, constitutes a violation of the worker’s right to privacy,” data protection lawyer Gerard Espugna added in a statement posted on social media following the judgement.
Judges concluded that the man’s consent was required for monitoring his browser history especially because he had not been specifically warned against using his work phone in a personal capacity, the El Periódico newspaper reports.
The decision also reportedly hinged on a lack of company procedure around warning workers about the risk of dismissal if they are found watching porn on shift.
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The High Court heard that Trisquel Protección bosses had checked the security guard’s phone after other employees with access reported that it was operating more slowly than usual.
They found the pornographic pages, linked them to the worker and fired him from the company.
The worker initially brought a case against the company to Spain’s Social Court in 2020. A subsequent ruling in his favour was appealed at the High Court level by Trisquel Protección, but has once again seen the employee emerge triumphant.
The High Court also ruled in favour of another man who said he had been unfairly dismissed on the grounds of masturbating while watching pornography in the office in 2023, setting the precedent that it is not sufficient grounds for dismissal.