Mr M Wakefield v Adomast Manufacturing Limited — 2020

Mr Wakefield was employed by Adomast Manufacturing Limited as a sales/office manager from 18 July 2016 until his dismissal on 14 February 2020. The tribunal found that relations between him and the managing director, Mrs Wolstenholme, deteriorated after the DVLA licence-check incident in November 2019 and then worsened through a series of grievances, correspondence, and disputes about health and safety, GDPR, and staff relations.

The tribunal accepted that Mr Wakefield made three protected disclosures: the letter of 29 November 2019 to the respondent and the ICO concerning GDPR issues, the report to the Environment Agency on 10 December 2019 about environmental concerns, and the report to the HSE on 8 January 2020 about first aid cover and health and safety. It also accepted that the respondent knew of those disclosures. However, it found that they were not the reason, or principal reason, for dismissal.

Instead, the tribunal found that the respondent dismissed Mr Wakefield for some other substantial reason, namely an irretrievable breakdown in trust and confidence and the working relationship between the parties. It accepted that the respondent reasonably believed the relationship had become untenable, that the claimant had occupied significant management time with repeated complaints, and that the atmosphere in a small workplace had become mutually antagonistic. The tribunal held that the respondent acted within the range of reasonable responses in dismissing him without a prior hearing, concluding that a hearing would have been futile in the circumstances.

The claimant’s complaint of automatically unfair dismissal therefore failed, as did his ordinary unfair dismissal complaint. The tribunal did not award any remedy because both claims were dismissed.