Mr J Killen v Parrhesia Inc. — 2023

The respondent was a newly formed charity set up by the claimant and Ian Foxley. After David Dickson received NMC material about the claimant's previous name and conviction, the trustees met the claimant on 2 July 2021. The claimant then resigned in writing, and later correspondence showed a concern on both sides about the effect of his conviction on the charity's reputation. The Tribunal accepted that the respondent knew the claimant was disabled and accepted Dr Bott's evidence that PTSD had a material influence on the assault leading to the conviction, but it also found that the claimant had downplayed the extent of the assault to others and that the respondent did not know the full extent before the NMC report was received.

On the section 15 Equality Act claim, the Tribunal rejected the contention that there had been an ad hoc HR process, pressure to resign and accept a minor role, a fictitious complaint, or unnecessary restrictions. It found the respondent wanted to retain the claimant, that nothing had been decided without Board consideration, and that the request for the debit card back was for operational reasons after he had resigned as Chief Operations Officer. The Tribunal also held that the claimant's PTSD had a material influence on the assault leading to the conviction, but it was not satisfied that the claimant was subjected to unfavourable treatment because of that or that the respondent's actions were anything other than proportionate steps to manage reputation and relationships and maintain standards of conduct.

The harassment claim based on the 5 July 2021 telephone conversation failed because the Tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the comments were made in an attempt to persuade the claimant not to resign and to retain his services. It found the remarks did not have the purpose or effect of violating the claimant's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment, and that they were not related to disability in the way alleged. The victimisation claim failed because the Tribunal was not satisfied that the claimant had done a protected act by disclosing alleged harassment to David McDowall, and it did not accept that the later emails from 12 July 2021 onwards amounted to detriment because of any protected act.

The protected disclosure detriment claim failed because the Tribunal did not accept that the alleged May 2021 disclosure to David McDowall was made, noted that the claimant did not refer to any protected disclosure in his resignation letter or later correspondence, and found no evidence that any treatment in July 2021 was on the ground of such a disclosure. The Tribunal also found no ad hoc HR process or protected-disclosure detriment. The only claims to succeed were outstanding holiday pay under the Working Time Regulations 1998 and failure to provide a written statement of terms and conditions, but the judgment did not determine amounts because the parties said they would seek to agree them.