Mr Mark Hunt v Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority — 2022

Mr Hunt, a firefighter with 25 years' service, was dismissed on 23 November 2018 after Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority investigated a 2017 video posted from an account in his name showing his former partner H in bed, and then investigated wider allegations arising from their relationship. The tribunal anonymised H, her son M, and the non-party witnesses Q and K, and noted that the case concerned conduct in Mr Hunt's private life rather than events at work.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal held that the Service had placed undue weight on Mr Hunt's failure to report police involvement. It found that the complaints policy was directed to complaints about the Service, that matters amounting to criminal conduct were to be referred to police, and that the disciplinary policy did not make failure to report a police investigation itself gross misconduct. The tribunal concluded that these private-life events were not relevant 'conduct' for the purposes of s.98 ERA 1996, that dismissal was outside the range of reasonable responses, and that the process was unfair in any event because of the long delay, the prolonged suspension, the vague and shifting allegations, the uneven treatment of the parties' accounts, and the failure to interview some relevant witnesses. It also said the case would have justified the maximum 25% uplift for non-compliance with the ACAS Code, but no remedy was determined in this liability judgment.

The tribunal also upheld direct discrimination on grounds of sex under section 13 Equality Act 2010. It found sufficient 'something more' beyond sex and dismissal to engage the burden of proof, including the different treatment of Mr Hunt's and H's accounts, the failure to probe obvious inconsistencies in H's evidence, and the way the investigation and disciplinary allegations were framed from the outset as domestic abuse and coercive control. The tribunal said that approach was not gender-neutral and reflected stereotypical assumptions about male and female roles in domestic abuse cases, so Mr Hunt was treated less favourably than a female firefighter in the same circumstances would have been treated.