Manager of jail fired after being charged with stalking ex-girlfriend
This instalment of You Make the Call features a corrections officer who was fired after being charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend.
Mark Keating was an Operational Manager at the Windsor Jail and had been employed with the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services for 22 years. He was responsible for supervising correctional officers at the jail.
Keating had a discipline-free employment for several years and received positive performance reviews until March 2002, when he was suspended for three days without pay after showing a pornographic video that had been emailed to him to two female officers. In September 2003, he was suspended for 10 days for a reprisal against a female officer who had made a harassment complaint against him. Another 10-day suspension came in January 2004 related to policy breaches.
In 2004 and 2005, Keating was in an on-again, off-again relationship. Things were not going well on July 1, 2005, when he parked his car on the street near the woman’s home around midnight and used binoculars to look at her house. He watched her leave to go to work — she didn’t work for the ministry — and a neighbor, who had noticed him sitting there for a while, called police. Keating was charged and a story appeared in the newspaper saying that he was a ministry employee who had a history of sexual harassment complaints against him.
The ministry suspended Keating while it investigated the matter. Keating, on the advice of his lawyer, refused to answer questions related to the criminal charges other than basic information.
The ministry decided to discharge Keating for breach of trust necessary for his position, bringing disrespect to the ministry, violating the policy of staff conduct and failing to co-operate with the investigation, as required under correctional services legislation for security-related investigations.
Keating was eventually acquitted of the charges and filed a grievance, claiming he should not have been dismissed for an incident unrelated to the workplace. He also claimed the investigation was not security-related but rather a human resources issue and he was not obligated to answer any questions related to the police investigation.
You Make the Call
Was Keating’s misconduct towards his ex-girlfriend and in the investigation worthy of dismissal?
OR
Was the misconduct not related to his job and not deserving of dismissal?
If you said dismissal was too harsh, you’re right. The arbitrator found the investigation was appropriate, given the concerns the charges raised over his responsibilities. However, she found the ministry had the information it needed and any further answers from Keating would have just been an opportunity to give his side of the story.
The evidence related to the spying incident showed Keating had watched her house and remained some distance away so his ex-girlfriend didn’t know he was there. He said he had wanted to determine if she was working a midnight shift so he would know when to talk to her the next day. The arbitrator found this to be a likely explanation, further evidenced by the dropped charges.
The arbitrator found Keating’s intentions and the minimal affect on the subject mitigated his misconduct. However, his position and the publicity afterwards increased its seriousness.
The risk of a criminal conviction was also of concern, since it would negatively impact Keating’s ability to deal with inmates and staff, particularly after his previous suspensions, the arbitrator found.
