THE assistant editor of a climbing magazine, who was sacked after publishing a photograph of a dead climber, has won an unfair sacking claim and #12,140 compensation.
An industrial tribunal in Glasgow heard earlier that Mr Garry Thomas 46, of Meadow Bank Avenue, Strathaven, illustrated an article in Climber magazine with a photograph taken by mountain guide Neal Beidleman of a dead climber in the Himalayas.
This led to angry letters from some readers.
The company, Caledonian Publishing, said the use of the picture was out of step with the stance of the magazine.
Mr Thomas said the picture had been on the cover of a book that sold 140,000 copies and its use in the context of the article was justified. He also claimed there had been a direction to ''spice up'' the magazine with ''sex, death, and bodies''.
The tribunal heard that earlier issues of the magazine had front-page headlines such as ''Forget sex, this is the ultimate trip'' with an article about rockclimbing and ''The dead in praise of Britain's fallen climbers'', described as a celebration of the lives of those who had died climbing.
The tribunal concluded that neither the magazine's editor, Tom Prentice, who had been on holiday at the time, nor the author of the article, Ed Douglas, were ''horrified'' or indeed particularly upset by publication of the photograph.
The tribunal found there was not as much investigation as there could have been and ruled the sacking to be unfair. Publication of the photograph was at worst an error by Mr Thomas, who was working under pressure to meet the publication date, and at best showed a poor matter of taste as to whether the use of the photograph detracted from the article.
Assessing the use of the photograph, the company failed to give sufficient weight to the fact that Mr Douglas had intended that a number of photographs of dead climbers should be used.
Mr Thomas had wanted the tribunal to order his reinstatement, but the tribunal said the title had been sold and there were no other suitable positions. Glasgow-based Caledonian Publishing Ltd was ordered to pay him #12,140 compensation.
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