Ms T Maddison v Thorpe Willoughby Childcare Centre — 2024

Ms T Maddison had worked for Thorpe Willoughby Childcare Centre as centre manager from 1 June 2008 until her dismissal on 20 September 2023. The tribunal found that the dismissal was for conduct, arising first and most seriously from the 20 June 2023 incident when a two-year-old child burned a hand on a lamp on the nursery floor. The tribunal found that the claimant did not report the accident to the chair, did not take staff statements, did not wait for the mother, did not call the mother to check on the child, did not remove the lamps immediately, did not ensure the lamps were safe to use, and had not completed risk assessments despite earlier requests.

The tribunal also took into account the claimant's conduct at the 3 July 2023 meeting and a number of other matters identified in the disciplinary process, including shouting at staff, claiming back hours without approval while working from home, leaving the centre without approval with a potential breach of adult-to-child ratios, failing to follow absence notification procedures, and failing to sign in and out of the fire register. It found that the respondent had adequate grounds to believe the claimant was guilty of misconduct and that it had carried out as much investigation as was reasonably possible in the circumstances, including with external HR assistance.

Applying sections 98(1), 98(2) and 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, together with the Burchell test and the band of reasonable responses approach from Swift, the tribunal held that the dismissal fell within the range of reasonable responses open to an employer. It noted that the claimant was summarily dismissed for ten instances of misconduct and said that, even if the respondent had dismissed her only for the circumstances surrounding the accident, that alone could have amounted to gross misconduct within the band of reasonable responses. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore dismissed.