Agreed. A lot of the other commentators here don’t seem to understand the concept of “stress leave”. It’s likely that nobody would have objected, if the guy had spent the time off sitting on a deck chair in Brighton. He had friends to stay with in Oz, so the trip seems reasonable. Of course, I’m assuming that his condition was properly diagnosed, and that he wasn’t “faking it”.
(BTW, FWIW, I have never taken stress leave; although, like a good many others, I would have qualified at times. My main reason for persevering was simply the knowledge that taking stress leave was a career killer. I have known several people, who did take stress leave. Most were legitimate cases — some were malingerers. I have no sympathy whatsoever for the malingerers. The root cause of most legitimate stress cases is bad management. There are only a finite number of ways to be a good manager; but there are an infinite number of ways to be a bad manager.)
The need for stress leave may have been perfectly justified, because the charity doesn't appear to be very charitable:
>>> Marshallsea said the club welcomed him back from the trip by handing him his walking papers. <<<