And speaking of sharing history brings me to the case of Easton v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Border Force) 2025, in which an employee did not share quite enough.

Mr Easton was a career civil servant. From 1992, he worked for the Ministry of Defence, then the Home Office from 2002 as Chief Immigration Officer. In June 2016, Mr Easton was dismissed by the Home Office for gross misconduct and a settlement was reached. Following this, Mr Easton started a new role with the Department of Work and Pensions in September 2016.

In May 2019, Mr Easton applied for the role of Immigration Officer with the Secretary of State for the Home Department, a.k.a. Border Force. Upon recruitment, Mr Easton had to complete applications regarding health and employment history. The application did not have any specific instructions on how to set out the employment history information or reasons for leaving employment. Mr Easton did not mention his previous dismissal for gross misconduct and laid out his employment history with reference to his years of employment only which did not reveal the three-month gap of unemployment between the Home Office and the Department of Work and Pensions.

Despite this, Mr Easton’s application was successful and he started work with the Border Force in January 2020. Within a couple months of starting, Mr Easton encountered a former line manager from his previous employment with the Home Office. The former line manager informed Mr Easton’s current line management of his previous employment that had been terminated on grounds of gross misconduct. In May 2020, a disciplinary investigation was launched, concluding that Mr Easton had been dishonest in his job application by omitting relevant information, and was subsequently dismissed. Mr Easton appealed the decision which ultimately failed.

Mr Easton then filed multiple claims, including unfair dismissal, to the Employment Tribunal.

All claims were unsuccessful. The ET confirmed that the Border Force’s decision to terminate Mr Easton’s employment was within the “band of reasonable responses” to the information they had found and was therefore fair.

Mr Easton appealed the decision to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. He argued that the ET had failed to acknowledge the fact that the application form lacked guidance on how it should be completed.

The appeal was also unsuccessful. The EAT found that the ET had fully engaged with the question of whether a reasonable applicant would interpret the blank Employment History box as requiring disclosure of gaps and dismissal details. The ET had made factual findings that Mr Easton understood such information was material and relevant, had signed a declaration confirming awareness of disciplinary consequences for omissions, and nonetheless failed to disclose either his previous dismissal for gross misconduct or subsequent three-month period of unemployment.

It was not unfair to treat the dismissal as dishonesty. The EAT held that the ET had applied the BHS v Burchell principles properly, had recognised Mr Easton’s arguments, and was entitled to find on the facts that the Border Force had reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Easton’s decision to present his employment history in a way which obscured the fact and nature of his dismissal or unemployment gap had been taken dishonestly.

This case confirms that employers are entitled to treat the omission of material information as dishonest misconduct, even if the application form does not explicitly ask for that detail. This case reinforces the importance of clear application processes and highlights the legal backing for dismissing employees who fail to disclose relevant history, particularly when a declaration of truthfulness is signed.

To prevent similar issues, employers should ensure that application forms explicitly request disclosure of all previous dismissals and employment gaps, and that declarations clearly state that omissions may lead to disciplinary action or dismissal. This reduces ambiguity, supports fair process, and protects against future litigation.