Ms Roche v Speedy Asset Services Ltd — 2020

Ms Roche worked for Speedy Asset Services Limited as a transport coordinator from 19 December 2016 until her summary dismissal on 21 May 2019. The dismissal followed two matters arising from the same evening in August 2018: a garage collision, for which she later received a final written warning in October 2018, and a later investigation in 2019 into driving a 7.5 tonne vehicle without a tachograph card inserted. The tribunal accepted that the reason for dismissal was conduct and that Mr Jones genuinely believed the claimant had committed misconduct, but it found that the fairness question under section 98(4) ERA 1996 depended on whether the employer acted reasonably overall.

The tribunal accepted that Mr Jones had reasonable grounds to believe the claimant was aware she should have had her tachograph card inserted and that, on the material then before him, he could reasonably view the tachograph issue as misconduct capable of affecting the respondent's operating licence. However, it found that Mr Jones went further and treated the claimant as having deliberately removed the card to hide her identity and responsibility for the garage collision, and as displaying a pattern of lack of integrity. That allegation was not squarely put to the claimant, and the tribunal held that a reasonable employer would have raised it expressly and investigated it more fully before relying on it.

The tribunal also found that Mr Jones did not properly take account of the handwritten mitigation notes the claimant had provided from the earlier disciplinary process. Those notes explained the claimant's stressful domestic circumstances, her panic after the collision, and her account that she feared losing her job. The tribunal held that this mitigation was relevant both to the garage incident and to the tachograph issue, because it bore on why she reacted as she did and how seriously the second matter should have been viewed. It also found that the appeal did not cure the defect because Mr Newsome's enquiries were limited and not sufficiently documented.

On the final written warning, the tribunal accepted that the warning was valid and could be taken into account, but it treated the case as unusual because both incidents arose from the same night rather than from a fresh post-warning offence. The tribunal concluded that the respondent's investigation, the failure to put the totality of the allegations to the claimant clearly, and the failure to evaluate the overlap with the earlier disciplinary process took the dismissal outside the band of reasonable responses. The claim for unfair dismissal was therefore upheld. For remedy, the tribunal held that any compensatory award would be reduced by 30% for Polkey chance of dismissal even after a fair process, and both basic and compensatory awards would be reduced by 25% for contributory fault, but it did not determine the monetary amount in this judgment.