Swarm of balaclava-clad booze bandits fended off by fired worker
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An employee with a 17-year tenure at BWS who witnessed a series of “swarming” burglary events in the workplace has been reinstated after the commission found that her involvement was not mischievous, but well intentioned.
A 67-year-old employee has been reinstated to her role at BWS Prospect Vale in Tasmania, after she was dismissed amid a season of burglaries at the store.
Fair Work commissioner Ben Redford determined that although there had been a “breach” of the company’s theft policies, her conduct did not warrant summary dismissal merely for the fact that it was inconsistent with the company’s policies.
Having worked with Endeavour Group Limited’s BWS retail liquor outlets since around 2009, the worker was summarily dismissed in early 2026 after a burglary incident, which saw her colleague’s thigh on the receiving end of a liquor bottle.
“She had not, on the evidence before me, been the subject of any other criticism or caution in relation to her conduct or performance at work, during some 17 years of employment,” the commission said.
Redford noted that there was no evidence of issues with her capacity, conduct, or performance for about 16 years, until the middle of 2025, when there was a significant increase in theft-related incidents in the Prospect Vale store.
“Her store manager at the Prospect Vale BWS store from some five years prior to the termination of her employment, Mr Curtis-Flynn, said he had a ‘really good’ working relationship” with the applicant,” the commission said.
The worker estimated 16 theft-related incidents between June 2025 and January 2026, largely confirmed by her store manager, who said “it wasn’t a fun place to work at for a period of time”, with another employee saying that there were a lot of incidents in this period, too many for him to recall.
After a raft of these incidents, the worker was summarily dismissed after she closed the store’s security roller door as a way of expelling three offenders from the store in a two-minute burgle.
Endeavour Group Limited has two policies, which the worker allegedly contravened. One of them was the armed hold-ups policy, and the other was the responding-to-theft module.
On 9 January 2026, a “swarming” incident occurred, in which three burglars entered the premises and swarmed the store to steal products.
Just minutes before 7pm, two masked and hooded females and one unmasked male entered the store, split up to different points of the store, and started filling bags they had brought with bottles of liquor.
“Almost immediately, [an employee] reached a phone and appeared to dial a number … [another] called the police.
“[An employee] activated the duress alarm at this point,” the commission heard.
The commission heard that the workers were telling the offenders to get out, with one saying words to the effect of “get out, you’re not welcome”.
Halfway through the incident, the commission said, the CCTV showed that the applicant emerged from the back storeroom to lower the front roller door, saying words to the effect of “leave the store now, we are closing, go”.
The CCTV showed that within 10 seconds, the two females left under the roller door, with one of them trying to stop its descent.
One of the employees told the commission that the male offender said, “if you do not let me out I will stab you”. The male offender paused before leaving the store and threw a bottle at an employee by the cash register, striking him in the thigh.
The offenders left the store with bags of liquor two minutes after they initially entered.
Later that month, the applicant was summarily dismissed for misconduct, where she was accused of “actively [being] involved in aggravating a potential situation that could have elevated quite significantly”, by lowering the security roller door.
The commissioner found that the employer’s grounds for the dismissal were not valid and “the applicant is not a “genuine health and safety risk to herself, her colleagues and members of the public”, despite acting inconsistently with the company’s hold-ups policy and theft module.
Upon consideration of all evidence, the commissioner ruled the dismissal unfair, ordering that Endeavour reinstate the applicant and ordering compensation of $3,656.755.
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Compensation is a term used to describe a monetary payment made to a person in return for their services. Employees get pay in their places of employment. It includes income or earnings, commision, as well as any bonuses or benefits that are connected to the particular employee's employment.
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