Mr K Enyiazu v Devon Partnership NHS Trust — 2019

Mr K Enyiazu, a Black African-origin community support worker with the Devon Partnership NHS Trust, was dismissed on 11 June 2018 after an investigation into his involvement in a transaction concerning two guitars belonging to a service user. The tribunal found that he had made admissions in his 29 November 2017 email that the transaction had been wrong, that it should not have happened, and that he had failed to document it properly. It accepted that the Trust investigated the matter, suspended him, held a disciplinary hearing and appeal, and concluded that the conduct amounted to gross misconduct.

On the unfair dismissal claim, the tribunal applied section 98 ERA 1996, including the question whether the Trust had a genuine belief in misconduct on reasonable grounds after a reasonable investigation, and whether dismissal was within the band of reasonable responses. It held that the decision-makers did believe Mr Enyiazu had committed the misconduct, that they had reasonable grounds for that belief, and that Mr O’Donoghue’s investigation, although described as somewhat zealous and lacking experience in places, was not outside the range of reasonableness. The tribunal also found that the sanction of dismissal was not outside the band of reasonable responses, given the nature of the misconduct and the mitigation considered.

The race discrimination claim had two parts. First, Mr Enyiazu alleged that he received fewer supervision meetings than a comparator because of race. The tribunal rejected Ms Kiehne as a comparator because she was full time, and instead used a hypothetical comparator in materially similar circumstances. It found no facts from which race discrimination could be inferred and accepted that the number and timing of supervisions were affected by part-time working and Mr Enyiazu’s own personal circumstances.

Second, Mr Enyiazu alleged that his dismissal was tainted by race discrimination because complaints from the service user and his mother were racially motivated. The tribunal accepted that some comments made by X and Y amounted to racially discriminatory stereotyping, but held that the Trust properly distinguished those remarks from its task of deciding whether Mr Enyiazu had engaged in misconduct. It found no evidence that the relevant Trust managers had a discriminatory motive, and dismissed the race discrimination claims in full.