Two Christchurch Customs officers who were sacked for allegedly leaking to a local newspaper concerns about the behaviour of a gay officer have won their jobs back.
The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has ruled that Customs botched its investigation into the leaking allegations and both Glenn Rankin and John Smith should be reinstated.
Mr Rankin and Mr Smith had long opposed a Customs policy that passengers were not entitled to know the sexual orientation of officers conducting strip searches at airports.
Customs sacked the pair in March this year after it found The Press newspaper had two confidential reports on the number of searches conducted by a gay officer, who has name suppression, and a complaint about his behaviour.
It was implied the officer may have been misusing his authority for sexual gratification, although an investigation found he was not performing inappropriate searches.
However, there were complaints of him making lewd comments before and after searches.
Both Mr Rankin and Mr Smith denied leaking the reports to the media.
The ERA, when it looked at Customs' investigation, concluded The Press may have only had two figures from the documents, and not the documents themselves, which could have meant someone else may have been the source of the leak.
A fair and reasonable employer would have decided there was insufficient evidence of a leak, it said.
Customs also failed to follow proper procedure because there were no specific allegations the pair could respond to and some information was withheld from them.
The ERA ordered that both be reinstated and paid lost wages, but decided against compensation for hurt and humiliation.
Mr Smith had contributed to his sacking by his manner during interviews and was openly critical of some management, the ERA said.
Mr Rankin's behaviour, in sending emails about the gay officer, fell well short of what was expected of someone in a leadership position.
Customs said it intended to appeal the decision.
NZPA