A worker at an ethical animal feed company has won an unfair dismissal case after he was fired for 'mercy killing' a deer at work.
Forklift driver Anthony Brown put a deer out of its misery by cutting its throat when he spotted it laying down, injured, and 'gasping for air', a tribunal heard.
Mr Brown was fired as his employer thought the killing was illegal - even claiming his actions were 'utterly barbaric and extreme'.
Mr Brown - who previously worked as a professional humane animal killer - successfully sued for unfair dismissal, with a judge finding he was 'rational' and 'did what he felt he had to do'.
He is now in line to receive compensation after his victory over Oxfordshire-based AB Agri.
The employment tribunal heard that before Mr Brown worked for AB Agri, he worked for a hunt and was routinely called out to humanely kill animals which had been injured on the roads. ‘He was what is called a knackerman’, the judgment said.
He began working for AB Agri in 1999, and at the time of his sacking was employed as a shift leader in Enstone, Oxfordshire.
The responsibilities of his role included shunting trucks, training staff and forklift operation.
Mr Brown killed a deer which had strayed on to the firm’s site in January 2024 and was discovered lying near a fence.
The tribunal heard: "He observed that its head was not fully upright, there was visible facial damage, and it was gasping for breath.
"(His colleague) was present. (Mr Brown) states that he assessed the situation, concluded that the deer was in significant distress and near to the end of its life.
"He decided to mercifully kill the animal and thus to prevent further suffering."
The deer died 'immediately' after he cut its throat, the tribunal heard.
Operations manager Alison Campbell interviewed Mr Brown in February 2024, and he told her that he had mercy killed animals on two previous occasions at work - once after a colleague hit a deer with a car, and on another occasion when a cat was maimed after hiding in a lorry which then started.
Mr Brown said that a manager told him after he killed the deer which was hit by a car that it was 'fine' he did that.
The tribunal found that the manager still worked at the company at the time - but he was not spoken to in order to verify what Mr Brown had said.
The shift leader was suspended amid concerns he may have done something illegal.
In a disciplinary hearing, Mr Brown was told that what he did was an 'illegal act under the Deer Act 1991' – the tribunal heard his bosses had 'imagined' it was a 'legal requirement that a person with accreditation perform the killing of the animal'.
An employment judge said the company ‘at no stage’ explained to Mr Brown what part of the Deer Act was being cited as evidence of an ‘illegal act’. EJ Grahame Anderson said it ended up relying on a section entitled ‘Poaching of deer’ which he said ‘outlaws the killing of deer on land without the permission of the owner or ‘occupier’’.
Another operations manager, Andrew Malone, told Mr Brown that he would 'likely have wanted to do the same thing' in his position, but wouldn't have because it wasn't part of his job.
AB Agri told the tribunal that the company is in favour of animal welfare, and by definition killing an animal is contrary to its welfare
Mr Malone believed Mr Brown was 'motivated by the animal’s welfare' in killing the deer. But he was sacked, and a subsequent appeal was unsuccessful.
The tribunal found that from the outset of the disciplinary process, AB Agri was convinced Mr Brown 'must have done something illegal and did not much trouble itself to work out if that was true or in what way it was true'.
AB Agri's representative told the tribunal that the company is in favour of animal welfare, and by definition killing an animal is contrary to its welfare.
The representative also said that what Mr Brown did was 'Utterly Barbaric and Extreme'.
EJ Anderson said that AB Agri 'has sought to retrofit its justification for the dismissal after it was surprised to discover that what (Mr Brown) had done may not have been illegal'.
The judge found that Mr Brown carried out a 'mercy killing'.
He said of Mr Brown: "It is obvious to us that he is a man who cares very deeply about the humane treatment of animals.
"We accept his evidence that he has experience of the sad but necessary task of putting animals out of their misery.
‘He formed the rational judgement that to wait for the RSPCA, a vet or the police would simply prolong the inevitable."
The Cambridge employment tribunal was held virtually.
The amount of compensation Mr Brown will receive will be decided later this year.
