Woman sacked as daughter's pics used for adult website

A woman who was sacked after she was caught using her employer's adult website to advertise photos of her daughter was justifiably dismissed, the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has found.

Michele Debreceni was sacked from her job as a business account manager for Auckland-based Apollo Marketing Advertising - which operates the sexual services website Adultspace - when she was caught using the website to advertise her own business Fantasemail.

Fantasemail was a sexual email service and Ms Debreceni had posted photos of her daughter in the hope she would gain promotional and modelling work.

She had stored 396 photos of her daughter on Apollo's computers.

Ms Debreceni said she had used the Fantasemail advertising banner as a sales tool that linked to Apollo's website, to help break through market sectors that were less sex orientated, like pubs and clubs, and was unjustifiably dismissed from her job.

However, she had documented business transactions with it as though it was a genuine customer which was "plainly inconsistent with her explanation that it was a sales tool for Apollo", ERA member Leon Robinson said.

The ERA found Apollo was right to reject Ms Debreceni's explanations and any fair and reasonable employer would have taken the same view. Ms Debreceni did not have any personal grievance, it said.

- NZPA