An imam who blew the whistle on his mosque has won a case for unfair dismissal.
Yahya Barry was sacked after he raised concerns over financial irregularities and reported Edinburgh Central Mosque to the charity regulator, OSCR.
Mr Barry, 35, had been worried by thousands of pounds of payments being made from petty cash, rather than by cheque.
An unemployment tribunal has now ruled that his concerns amounted to “protected disclosures” - the legal definition of whistleblowing - and that his dismissal was therefore unfair.
Judge Murdo Macleod, who heard Mr Barry’s case in November, said the mosque had not been ready to accept criticism from the imam.
In a formal ruling, Mr Macleod said: “They reacted in an an extraordinarily defensive way, in our judgment, instead of looking at the facts.”
The judge added: "This defensiveness was, in our judgment, redolent of an employer that was not prepared to accept criticism and [Mr Barry's] persistence in raising matters both with the management and with OSCR led directly to the process which led to his dismissal."
Mr Barry was appointed to his £30,000-a-year role in December 2015 and dismissed in September 2017.
The hearing heard he had clashed with the mosque's director, Dr Naji Al Arfaj, who came in the post in January 2017.
Officially he was dismissed after an investigation for what the mosque called "hostile" and "aggressive" behaviour.
Mr Barry had been accused of calling Dr Naji a liar over claims the director about mosque finances.
In his decision Mr Macleod, however, said the Tribunal had "great misgivings" about whether the mosque's investigation into this claim was fair.
While Mr Barry did admit to once "loosing his cool", Mr Macleod judged that the mosque was wrong to assert a pattern of hostile behaviour.
Instead, Mr Macleod concluded one of the reasons Mr Barry was that he had raised concerns over petty cash.
On his whistleblowing form Mr Barry claimed payments totalling around £8000 had been paid out of petty cash. He cited payments made without invoices.
During the hearing, Ahmed Werfali, now a lecturer in accounts and finance at Dundee University, told the tribunal he quit in March 2017 due to issues with Dr Naji Al Arfaj, including the irregular use of petty cash.
Mr Werfali, who described the environment at the mosque as “toxic”, claimed large cash sums were being paid out to tradesmen without any quotations being sought for the work or invoices being issued.
The accountant said he was also concerned by the way the mosque handled cash from its car park.
Mr Macleod said a new hearing would be arranged to decide how Mr Barry could be compensated for his unfair dismissal. Since leaving the mosque Mr Barry has set up his own Madrassah and is studying for a PhD at Edinburgh University, where he is an honorary chaplain.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here