Ex-ACC accused of ‘you will die` threat loses claim for unfair dismissal from top UK gun club

A former acting assistant chief constable and United Nations peace-keeping police commissioner who swore at and “threatened to kill” a work colleague at the UK’s largest fieldsports organisation has lost his claim for unfair dismissal. Steve Curtis, the one-time leading North Wales Police officer who served for two years with the UN in Kosovo, claimed he had no option but to resign as director of human resources and operations with the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) because he felt members of the organisation’s council were conspiring against him. At an employment tribunal in Chester in March he claimed constructive dismissal on the grounds his trust and confidence in the 145,000-member association had been destroyed, which amounted to a breach of contract. The tribunal heard how Mr Curtis clashed with the Rossett-based BASC`s North of England regional director Alasdair Mitchell. Mr Curtis told the tribunal that Mr Mitchell had been “a source of a number of difficulties from an operational and HR perspective”, forever criticising head office staff and colleagues. Matters came to a head at a staff meeting at the Grosvenor Hotel, Pulford, in October 2014, after Mr Mitchell had made a speech again criticising head office staff. In a tirade of abuse which followed, he called Mr Mitchell “a complete c***” and was recorded as saying: “I am better than you and I’ve actually got f*** all to worry about. You will die with your deer. Is that clear enough?” When Mr Mitchell complained to BASC’s chief executive, Richard Ali, Mr Curtis – who had been drinking – wrote a letter of apology and received an informal reprimand, the tribunal heard. He said that he remembered using the `c` word because he used it so rarely, but he could not remember threatening to kill Mr Mitchell. “I was mortified when I later discovered what I had apparently said,” he added. Mr Curtis accepted he had acted inappropriately and felt deeply ashamed and embarrassed about the incident. “I had been in some horrendous situations in my 30 years as a police officer but even then had never before acted in an aggressive way, even in those situations,” he said. But the way Mr Mitchell’s complaint had been handled caused concern among staff and also council members when they subsequently learned about it the following year. With the row continuing to undermine relationships, and claims and counter-claims being made, the council commissioned an independent investigation by Caroline Prosser of solicitors Hill Dickinson. She exonerated Mr Curtis but, in May 2016, the council considered her report flawed, and commissioned a second inquiry. That, claimed Mr Curtis, who submitted his own grievances, showed that councillors had colluded to have him sacked with the second inquiry a “foregone conclusion”. Mr Curtis eventually resigned from the body just as he was about to be dismissed in May 2016, and claimed unfair dismissal. The tribunal also heard that Mr Ali and Gary Ashton, another former senior police officer who was the organisation’s Director Wales and Sporting Services, were both subsequently suspended. Alan Jarrett, who was chairman at the time, resigned in June 2016, and was quoted as saying: “It is obvious to me that council remains dysfunctional and unable or unwilling to take action against those…named in the Hill-Dickinson report.” Mr Mitchell resigned in December, 2015, but after being asked to reconsider his decision said he would do so only if a thorough investigation was held into the alleged bullying and corporate governance. He was supported by various members of the BASC council who pressed for yet another inquiry. Mr Curtis, who joined the BASC in 2013, told the hearing: “There is no doubt in my mind that the campaign against me has been the product of a conspiracy with Alasdair Mitchell and involving a number of councillors that I should be removed from the organisation.” He said the council’s refusal to accept the findings of the independent investigati