British veteran turned jail officer who was sacked with out a remaining warning after taking 98 days off with PTSD wins £82,000 payout

A British Army veteran who was sacked from the Prison Service after taking 98 days off in a row for his PTSD has won an £82,000 payout for unfair dismissal.

Morgan Armstrong, a bombardier who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and on European operational tours, worked at HMP Manchester from 2019 until the end of 2023.

However, the soldier was let go after he took an extended period of absence due to his post-traumatic stress disorder, which Prison Service bosses knew he had.

They believed they had served him with two formal notices about his time off, and these were logged on an internal system as such.

However, Mr Armstrong had been given two contrasting letters telling him that he was not the subject of formal disciplinary action. 

An employment tribunal has ruled that he was unfairly dismissed because of this, and that the way in which he was dismissed was a form of discrimination stemming from his PTSD, a legally recognised disability.

Bosses said he had been ‘blasé’ about his absence during the meeting in which he was sacked.

However, they had not considered the depression and anxiety stemming from his PTSD that may have made him appear off-character, Employment Judge Phil Allen concluded.

The tribunal, heard in Manchester, was told that Mr Armstrong had taken several leaves of absence due to multiple bouts of flu and issues with his mental health.

After taking 39 days off over three years, he was summoned to a meeting where prison bosses say he was given a formal warning. 

Contrary to this, he actually was given a letter telling him he was not the subject of formal action.

Following another period of time off, he was again summoned to a meeting where manager Wayne Howard said he gave Mr Armstrong a final formal warning.

But in what Mr Howard has since said was an error, he gave the veteran a letter telling him: ‘I am not pursuing formal action on this occasion.’ 

This led the prison officer to believe he was not on notice.

Matters came to a head when he applied to move from working on a wing to working full-time escorting inmates outside prison – turning down offers to apply to work on ‘mundane’ visiting shifts.

Around the same time, he called in sick in early September 2023. He would not return to work again. 

During his time away, the tribunal heard, Mr Armstrong was told by both his manager and a colleague that he would be moving to ‘external’ duties as he had hoped. 

But in October, he found out he would be put onto visiting duties that he had not applied for, causing a ‘massive dip’ in his mental health. 

Shortly thereafter, he was told he would be facing another meeting to discuss his absence.

Medical reports prepared ahead of the meeting suggested he had stopped taking antidepressants because he had felt better, but this to symptoms coming back ‘with a vengeance’.

It added: ‘Once his mental health symptoms do start to improve, he could attempt a phased return to work, and I anticipate it could take a few months until he feels well enough to return when his medications take full effect.’

No date was given for his expected return, but he told manager Simon Eve he hoped to return to work when his sick note ran out. 

But prison service bosses interpreted this as meaning that he was unfit in any capacity to return to work – which, the tribunal said, ‘is not what the report said at all’.

Regardless, following a meeting on December 11, Morgan Armstrong was sacked for his ‘terrible’ absence record. His bosses took, it was heard, as little as two minutes to make the decision, and that he had gone in ‘blind’, without any of the paperwork his managers were armed with.

Giving evidence, the soldier told the tribunal that he felt everything he said fell on ‘deaf ears’ and that the decision ‘had already been made’. 

He was not, the tribunal suggested, asked about when he might be able to return to work. An appeal was refused.

Robert Knight, governing governor of HMP Manchester, claimed Mr Armstrong had been ‘blasé’ in his demeanour at the meeting. 

But Employment Judge Allen noted: ‘We would observe that what Mr Knight might have been interpreting was the demeanour that would be expected of somebody with anxiety, depression and PTSD, particularly someone who was having issues with their medication at the time.’

He found the soldier had been unfairly dismissed, had suffered unlawful discrimination arising from disability, and that the Prison Service had breached its duty to make reasonable adjustments.

Other complaints of direct disability discrimination and unfair treatment owing to his disability – a claim that he did not get the job escorting prisoners because of his absence – were not upheld.

The judge also reduced the total award by 40 per cent because there was, he said, a ‘realistic possibility that… a fair and non-discriminatory decision to dismiss might have been made by this employer’. 

A request by Mr Armstrong to reconsider this was turned down by the tribunal. In all, he was paid £82,067.62, made up of a £3,500 basic award, £30,000 compensation, £41,000 of losses and £7,700 of interest.

Employment Judge Allen concluded: ‘The employer could have been expected to wait longer for the claimant’s return.’

Mr Armstrong and HM Prison Service were contacted for comment.