Qantas worker sacked for watching porn loses unfair dismissal case

A Qantas worker who was caught using his company-issued iPad to publicly watch porn at work on multiple occasions insisted his sacking was unfair. But his claims of how the material popped up on the device didn’t convince Fair Work.

A QANTAS aircraft engineer who was fired for using his company-issued iPad to watch porn at work has had his unfair dismissal claim rejected.

Gary Christopher Mellios’ 41-year career with Qantas came to a halt in February last year when he was dismissed following allegations from two female Caltex refuellers that Mellios had publicly viewed pornographic material on his iPad.

The two women claimed to have seen Mellios looking at sexually explicit material – including the video selection page of a porn website and lewd images – on his work iPad in the Engineering hut of the Brisbane airport on various occasions between 2016 and 2018.

In defence of his actions, Mr Mellios told a Qantas engineering manager that he had been having “microsleep” at the time and had accidentally accessed the images but had since gotten a CPAP machine.

Following an internal investigation from Qantas, Mr Mellios was stood down as a consequence of allegations that he had used the iPad to access pornographic websites multiple times including while he was at work and had saved pornographic images onto the iPad.

Qantas also alleged the man had – on multiple occasions – exceeded Qantas’ monthly data limits in a single day.

Mellios appealed for an unfair dismissal remedy last year with hearings on October 23-25 and November 8.

On Thursday July 2, Fair Work Deputy President Ingrid Asbury found that Mellios’ dismissal was not unfair.

In her verdict, Deputy President Asbury acknowledged Mellios’ “long” and “unblemished work history” but found that Mellios’ history with Qantas did not outweigh the severity of his actions.

“The pornographic material viewed by the Applicant was seen by two female employees on five occasions and had a significant impact on them,” she found.

“There is no excuse for the Applicant viewing pornography at work.

“It is also the case that despite the Applicant’s apologies and expressions of regret, and notwithstanding that he accepted that (the two female Caltex employees) may have seen something on the iPad screen which upset them, the Applicant’s denial that he was viewing pornography, implicitly impugns the credit of (the women).”