Ms A Chindipha v Under the Hammer Auctions Limited — 2024

Ms A Chindipha was employed by Under the Hammer Auctions Limited as Compliance Manager from 26 September 2022 until her dismissal on 21 December 2022. The tribunal accepted that the Teramind laptop records were accurate and found that, although the claimant carried out some work after 6 October 2022 on another device, she was not using the company laptop in the ordinary way during much of that period. On 21 December 2022 she was found to have used the company laptop to send customer files to her personal email account and to delete files, which the tribunal held breached the company's computer and confidentiality policies and amounted to repudiatory breach. Her one-week notice claim therefore failed because the respondent was entitled to dismiss her summarily.

The direct race discrimination complaint was rejected. The tribunal found that the failure to invite the claimant to the Negotiator event was not because of race, noting that the event was a marketing event for estate agents and that the claimant's compliance role was not comparable to the roles of those invited. It also found that branded clothing had been ordered and left at the office for collection rather than being sent out, and that the claimant did not make any complaint about it during employment. Although the list of issues framed one allegation as constructive dismissal, the tribunal found the claimant was expressly dismissed on 21 December 2022 and held that the reason was the laptop and confidentiality breaches, not race.

The harassment claim also failed. The tribunal accepted that the text saying the claimant had taken him for a mug and the later refusal to pay December wages were unwanted, and that the refusal to pay had an adverse effect on the claimant, but it held that neither episode was related to race. The respondent's counterclaim for £13,250, said to arise from an alleged loss on 56 Beech Rise, was dismissed because the tribunal was not satisfied that the claimant's conduct caused that loss. The only successful claim was unlawful deduction from wages, for which the tribunal awarded £1,894.63 gross in respect of 1 to 21 December 2022.