When ugly messages and imperfect process still leave a dismissal standing
A police detective's dismissal over years of discriminatory group messages was upheld by Victoria's Court of Appeal on February 25, 2026.
Murray Gentner, a Detective Leading Senior Constable with Victoria Police, had his phone and devices seized in May 2020 during a criminal investigation. What forensic analysis revealed was stark: years of group SMS conversations with Victoria Police colleagues containing derogatory, sexist, homophobic and vilifying language, alongside the sharing of sensitive police information. The conduct spanned from October 2015 to January 2020. Gentner never disputed the messages or their content.
He was charged with disgraceful or improper conduct and, following a disciplinary inquiry, was dismissed. An independent police oversight board upheld that decision.
Gentner then sought judicial review, arguing the process was compromised. The officer who conducted the disciplinary inquiry had amended the charge mid-process — adjusting the date range of the conduct to match the evidence and correcting a cross-referencing error. Gentner, who had consented to both amendments and admitted the charge in full, later argued the inquiry officer lacked the authority to make those changes.
A Victorian Supreme Court judge agreed, quashing the Board's decision and remitting the matter for rehearing. The Chief Commissioner appealed.
On February 25, 2026, the Court of Appeal reversed that decision. It found the inquiry officer did have the authority to amend the charge. But the court went further, addressing a question that matters well beyond policing: does a procedural flaw in a dismissal process automatically make the dismissal unjust?
The answer was no.
The Court set out the test plainly: "the question in any given case will be whether, in all the circumstances — including, but not limited to, the nature and significance of the statutory provision that was breached, and the nature and significance of the particular breach of the provision — the dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable."
A procedural misstep does not automatically undo a dismissal. The full picture matters — how serious was the conduct, was the employee genuinely prejudiced, and did the procedural issue affect the outcome?
In Gentner's case, he had consented to the amendments and admitted the conduct in full. The underlying misconduct was never in dispute. The Court also rejected treating procedural and substantive failures as categorically different, drawing on established authority that the line between the two is "elusive." What counts is a judgment across all the relevant circumstances.
That said, the Court was equally clear that process cannot be treated as an afterthought. Synthesising the established authority in Kirkham v Industrial Relations Commissioner and Byrne v Australian Airlines Ltd, the Court stated that "a failure to comply with a statutory obligation in the exercise of a power to dismiss an employee will generally be capable of rendering the dismissal unjust — but it might not do so."
The ruling carries a clear signal for those who manage workplace discipline. When misconduct is serious, well-documented and uncontested, a dismissal holds firmer ground even where minor process imperfections exist. Where the underlying case is less clear-cut, procedural gaps carry far greater risk.
Keeping investigator and decision-maker roles separate, ensuring proper notice at each stage, and documenting the process carefully are not box-ticking exercises — they are what make a dismissal defensible when it counts.
