Unlike company directors and others subject to a fiduciary duty, most employees do not have a duty to disclose their own wrongdoing. However, if an employee dishonestly and deliberately makes untrue statements in order to cover up their own misconduct, this may amount to a fundamental breach of the duty of trust and confidence justifying summary dismissal.
In Human Kind Charity v Gittens a manager was asked to investigate who in her team had run up a huge data charge; her report dishonestly suggested that no one person was responsible when in fact she had run up the charge. The EAT held that the submission of a dishonest report was a repudiatory breach of contract and her summary dismissal was both fair and lawful.
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