Ms Gillian Crew (counsel) For the first v Respondent — 2021

The tribunal held that the claimant was employed by Hamton Environmental Services Ltd, not Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd, and declined to imply a contract of employment with Aston Martin. It accepted that the claimant worked under Aston Martin's day-to-day direction on the Gaydon production line, but found the contractual and practical arrangements remained consistent with employment by Hamton. The wrongful dismissal/notice pay and unpaid holiday pay complaints had been withdrawn and were not determined on the merits.

On the whistleblowing issues, the tribunal found that the claimant did not make the first alleged protected disclosure to Hamton in May 2019. It accepted that he complained in June 2019 about bruising to his arms and soreness to his wrists during a line walk, but held that this was a complaint about his own role and did not satisfy the public interest requirement in s.43B ERA 1996. As to the grievance of 30 September 2019, the tribunal found that the claimant was complaining about his own working conditions, but it rejected the factual basis he advanced for that complaint because the role had already been modified, aids had been provided, and the tribunal did not accept that he had a reasonable belief in the wider assertions he made.

The tribunal also rejected the dismissal claims. It found that on 30 September 2019 the claimant attended site intending to hand in his grievance and say goodbye to colleagues rather than to work, and that his actions caused production delay. It held that Aston Martin had already decided to end his assignment because of the disruption caused and because he was one of the Hamton workers whose assignment was to be reduced in the forthcoming staffing changes. Hamton then dismissed him with effect from 3 October 2019 because it had no alternative local work, and the tribunal found that the protected disclosure and health and safety complaints played no part in that decision.

The health and safety claims under s.44 ERA 1996 also failed. The tribunal held that it was reasonably practicable for the claimant to identify the relevant health and safety representatives or safety committee, that he had not shown circumstances of serious and imminent danger on 30 September 2019, and that he had not shown that he could not reasonably have avoided the situation. It found that he could have stayed away from work or raised the grievance by other means. It also held that Aston Martin could not be liable under s.44 because the claimant was not its employee at the material time.

The race harassment and direct race discrimination claims were dismissed. The tribunal found that the claimant's allocation to the harness-fitting role, the later decision not to rotate him immediately, and the handling of his grievance were driven by operational, ergonomic and staffing considerations, not by race. It rejected the comparator case advanced by the claimant and found no basis for inferring racial motivation. The tribunal did note that Hamton's grievance handling was superficial and did not follow good practice, but it found that this was attributable to Mr Wassell's approach and his deference to Aston Martin, not to the claimant's Panjaabi-Sikh ethnicity. Overall, all remaining complaints were dismissed.