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An employer gave no explanation for the "inordinately long time" it took to investigate and discipline an employee for misconduct, rendering her valid dismissal harsh.

Victoria Police sacked the forensic officer in January this year, after finding she had inappropriately obtained a colleague's work phone number and misrepresented herself as working for a newspaper to solicit information regarding an investigation involving her husband.

In unfair dismissal proceedings, Fair Work Commissioner Michelle Bissett heard that in 2015, the colleague and the employee's husband – who was at the time also employed by Victoria Police – began having an affair.

In 2018, the husband was named in an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) investigation, and in mid-2019 he was charged with breaching an IBAC confidentiality notice, summoned to appear in court, and suspended from duty...