Mr D Foster v South Yorkshire Housing Association — 2022

Mr D Foster worked for South Yorkshire Housing Association from 22 August 1994 until his dismissal on 17 June 2020, most recently as development project co-ordinator. The tribunal found that in July 2019 he sent 11 work documents to his personal email account and admitted that he had forwarded at least some documents to his former line manager, Karl Drabble, who had by then moved to a competitor. The respondent treated this as alleged breaches of its acceptable use, data protection, security and behaviours policies and dismissed him for gross misconduct after investigation and hearing stages in 2019 and 2020.

On the unfair dismissal claim, the tribunal applied the Burchell test and the range of reasonable responses approach. It found that the respondent genuinely believed the claimant had committed misconduct, had reasonable grounds for that belief, and had carried out a reasonable investigation. The tribunal accepted that Natalie Newman, Juliann Hall and Charlotte Murray were entitled to conclude that confidential material had been sent externally and that the claimant had not been fully transparent when first questioned. It also held that some procedural flaws, including the further investigation into the claimant’s mitigation after the disciplinary hearing, were cured on appeal.

The tribunal rejected the claimant’s case that his dismissal was unfair because similar document-sharing was common practice. It found there was evidence of a limited practice of sharing non-confidential templates and some former-employee contact, but not a condoned practice of sharing confidential information. On that basis, it concluded that the claimant was not being singled out for conduct that management had condoned, and that dismissal for the misconduct found fell within the band of reasonable responses.

On the wrongful dismissal claim, the tribunal held that the claimant’s conduct amounted to repudiatory breach of contract. It found that by sending confidential information to Karl Drabble and by not giving a full and frank account when first asked, he had seriously damaged trust and confidence and abandoned his contractual obligations. Both the unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal complaints therefore failed and were dismissed. No monetary award was made.