Miss P Macarthur v Remote Watch Monitoring Limited — 2022

Miss P Macarthur worked for Remote Watch Monitoring Limited as a CCTV operative from 7 January 2020 until she was dismissed without notice on 18 November 2020. The tribunal allowed amendment to add sexual harassment and victimisation claims, but it held that the alleged March 2020 comment by Mr Uddin was outside the three-month time limit and was not brought within a just and equitable extension under s.123 EqA 2010. The victimisation claim was also out of time, and the majority further found that the claimant had not told Mr Robinson about the alleged comment, so no protected act was established on the facts found by the majority. The minority member would have accepted that the claimant did tell Mr Robinson about the comment.

The direct sex discrimination claim failed. The tribunal found that Mr Robinson dismissed the claimant because she had repeatedly failed to follow the Respondent’s alarm handling procedure, including the Gosforth incident where she emailed rather than phoning the keyholder, despite previous advice and warnings. It rejected the claimant’s reliance on a comparator, Mr Kennedy, because his circumstances were materially different: he was more experienced, had not previously been disciplined for similar failures, and had attempted to phone the client but used the wrong number. Other matters relied on by the claimant, including comments at recruitment, Mr Robinson’s response to her miscarriage texts, mobile phone discipline, holiday refusal, and deduction of licence and training costs, were found either not proved to support her case or not sufficient to support an inference that sex played any part in the dismissal.

On the contractual claim for notice pay, the majority found that the claimant had acted in fundamental breach of contract and by gross negligence, so she was not entitled to notice of dismissal. The tribunal held that repeated failures to follow the alarm handling procedure destroyed trust and confidence, even though she was kept at work for about six weeks before the disciplinary hearing. The minority disagreed on that point and considered the delay inconsistent with a finding that trust and confidence had been lost. The separate wrongful dismissal allegation about failure to follow disciplinary procedures had been withdrawn and was dismissed under Rule 52.