Ms E Todd (formerly Ratcliffe) v Fairways Care Limited — 2021

The claimant worked as an Activities Coordinator at Ty Cariad Dementia Care Centre from 27 March 2019 and was dismissed on 25 April 2019. The tribunal found two protected disclosures: on her first day she told Ms Duffy that she had been left alone with residents before her DBS check came through and while she was supposed to be shadowing Ms Round; later she told Ms Round that a carer had kissed a resident on the lips and that she considered it inappropriate. Other alleged disclosures, including dirty glasses, swearing about residents and Easter eggs, were not accepted as protected disclosures.

The tribunal held that the first-day disclosure was made in the public interest and met the Kilraine threshold. It found that Ms Duffy passed on a negative version of that incident to Ms Woodruff, which portrayed the claimant in a negative light and was itself a detriment. It also found that the decision to call the claimant to a meeting on 25 April 2019 was materially influenced by that disclosure, so that detriment succeeded under s.47B ERA 1996 and the Fecitt "reason why" test. The kiss disclosure was accepted as a protected disclosure, but the tribunal did not find that it was reported onwards or that it caused any detriment.

The tribunal rejected the automatic unfair dismissal claim under s.103A ERA 1996. It found that Ms Woodruff called the meeting because she had feedback that the claimant was disruptive and rude to staff, and that the dismissal followed the heated meeting because Ms Woodruff concluded the claimant was not suitable to work with vulnerable adults. The protected disclosures were not the reason or principal reason for dismissal.

No financial loss was found to flow from the upheld detriments because the tribunal found Ms Woodruff would have called the meeting anyway and the appeal outcome would have been the same. The only remedy was £4,000 for injury to feelings, assessed in the lower Vento band with reference to Prison Service v Johnson and the updated Vento guidance.