Miss C Winn v Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council — 2019

Miss Winn, a hospitality assistant at the Granary cafe, was dismissed after the respondent concluded that she had voided transactions on the till for personal financial gain. The tribunal heard evidence about the 5 March 2018 incident in which a customer bought two lattes and a sausage roll, the till and CCTV clocks being 1 hour 16 minutes out of sync, and the later investigation into other voids during the sample period from 19 February to 5 March 2018. The investigation concluded that on 5 out of 6 shifts worked in that period a total of £169.35 of items had been voided, and the dismissing officer concluded that the claimant had received money from customers and then voided the transactions off the till.

Applying section 98(2) and section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, together with the reasonable band of responses approach, the tribunal found that conduct was a potentially fair reason and that the dismissal was substantively fair. It accepted that the cafe's cash handling arrangements were lax, that the till and CCTV clocks were not synchronised, and that there were shortcomings such as missing receipts and inaccurate rotas, but it found that these did not undermine the core evidence. The tribunal also rejected the suggestion that Mrs Patterson had engineered the allegation, finding that the respondent had carried out a thorough investigation, interviewed relevant staff, and had evidence linking the voids to the claimant's shifts.

On procedure, the tribunal noted that the disciplinary hearing ultimately took place on 4 December 2018 in the claimant's absence after several postponements for holiday and ill health, and that she had been offered the chance to make written representations or send her union representative. It accepted that the appeal was conducted as a review rather than a rehearing and that no notes were kept, which caused concern, but held that these matters did not make the dismissal procedurally unfair in the particular circumstances. The claim for unfair dismissal was therefore dismissed.