Mr A Wroe v The Carphone Warehouse Limited — 2021

Mr A Wroe had been employed by The Carphone Warehouse Limited since 2006 and was General Manager at the Doncaster Frenchgate store when he was dismissed in November 2019. The tribunal accepted that his calls to Expolink on 22 August 2019 and 13 September 2019 were qualifying protected disclosures under the whistleblowing provisions, because he reasonably believed he was reporting a possible legal breach concerning his wife's access to his iPhone and the sharing of information.

The tribunal nevertheless found that the reason for dismissal was the respondent's belief that the claimant had stolen a company iPhone X. The investigation was led by Ms Hoskinson, the disciplinary hearing by Mr Gibbs and the appeal by Mr Doherty. The tribunal attached substantial weight to CCTV footage showing the claimant taking the iPhone X from the cupboard on 27 July 2019, later handling it again, and then acting in an unexplained way on 23 August 2019 near the area where the phone was later found behind a computer terminal on 14 September 2019. It found the claimant's explanations were inconsistent and not accepted, and it accepted that Mr Gibbs and Mr Doherty genuinely believed the phone had been stolen.

The automatic unfair dismissal complaint therefore failed because the tribunal found the dismissal was not caused by the disclosures, and the ordinary unfair dismissal complaint also failed because the respondent had a reasonable basis for its conclusion after a reasonable investigation and the dismissal fell within the band of reasonable responses under section 98(4) ERA 1996. The tribunal also rejected the notice-period breach of contract claim, finding on the balance of probabilities that the claimant had taken the iPhone X and that this amounted to gross misconduct entitling the respondent to dismiss without notice. The holiday pay complaint and the unauthorised deduction complaint were both withdrawn during the hearing.