Mr Light (in person) For the v Mrs R Mohammed (solicitor) — 2019

Mr Light brought only an automatically unfair dismissal claim under s.103A of the Employment Rights Act 1996, after it was confirmed that he had insufficient service to claim ordinary unfair dismissal. The issue the tribunal determined as a preliminary matter was whether his report to the police on 21 December 2018 was a protected disclosure.

The tribunal accepted that Mr Light disclosed information that Comeytrowe Equestrian Limited had failed to pay deductions to the Child Maintenance Service. It also found that he reasonably believed an offence may have been committed, having been told that the CMS fraud service was investigating and that there could be a fine of up to £1,000.

The claim failed because the tribunal was not satisfied that Mr Light reasonably believed the disclosure was made in the public interest. It found that the matter was personal to him and his son, that he repeatedly said it would be in the public interest only if more employees had been affected, and that no other employees were affected in a business of six or seven people. On that basis the tribunal held that the report to the police was not a protected disclosure within the meaning of the Act.

Because there was no protected disclosure, the tribunal said it was unnecessary to consider s.43G. Mr Light had relied solely on the alleged protected disclosure as the reason for dismissal, so once that point failed the s.103A claim necessarily failed and was dismissed.