Miss Lucy Thorn v Mr Anthony Fish T/A Sound Service Property — 2025

Three-member tribunal sitting in Bristol heard the claimant's complaints of age discrimination and unauthorised deduction of wages against the respondent (a small family-run residential lettings business). The unanimous judgment dismissed all claims; the holiday pay claim had been withdrawn before the hearing.

On age discrimination, multiple individual allegations were considered. The tribunal found the comparator chosen (Mrs Turton, an older colleague with 19 years' administrative experience including 19 years at HMCTS) was materially better qualified and experienced than the claimant; differences in pay, allocation of work, provision of office keys, and treatment by colleagues all had non-discriminatory reasons. In a number of allegations the tribunal did not accept the claimant's account of events as honest, accurate or plausible. The claimant relied broadly on her status as a young employee without adducing evidence from which an inference of age discrimination could properly be drawn against a hypothetical older comparator.

On the wages claim, the tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the claimant did not work after 10:30am on 7 March 2024, did not obtain authorisation to leave, and did not make herself available to work prior to her resignation. The contemporaneous letter from the bookkeeper Mrs Janes of 5 April 2024 supported the respondent's explanation. The non-payment was found to be untainted by age. PDF text is truncated from the full judgment.

Source tags (gov.uk)

• Age Discrimination and Unlawful Deduction from Wages

• s.13 Equality Act 2010
• Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2024 rule 60(4)

The full judgment is available on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

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