Claimant v Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and others — 2022

The claimant started employment with the Trust in August 2012 as a Cardiac Physiologist. She had a consensual relationship with the Second Respondent, a senior cardiac physiologist, which began by February 2013 and was not resurrected after September 2015. The tribunal did not find proved the allegation that he had told her that no one would believe a girl over a more senior man, and it did not find that he had told colleagues about the relationship in the way alleged.

The tribunal rejected the key early allegations of sexual harassment. It did not find that the alleged touching on 17 January 2017 occurred as described or that the Second Respondent deliberately touched the claimant in a sexual manner. It also did not find proved the alleged 'newest sex partner' remark. A later comment that she was 'looking good' was treated as consistent with the parties' friendly and jokey text exchanges at the time, and was not found to be unwanted conduct creating the proscribed environment.

The tribunal also rejected the direct sex discrimination complaints about work allocation and opportunities. It found that the stock management task was removed because the claimant and the Second Respondent could not work well together, but it was not handed to a man. It found that rota and training decisions were driven by practical management issues, that the cable-hook suggestion was a practical one, that the claimant received a fair allocation of Saturday WLI shifts, and that the alleged band 8a role for Nathan Hillier was not created. On the same basis, the tribunal dismissed the harassment allegations linked to those matters and found that shouting incidents in May and October 2017, the rota dispute, the training delay in November 2019, and the 2020 rota and lab-reconfiguration issues were not shown to be because of sex.

The tribunal accepted that the 21 November 2019 staff meeting and the 10 July 2020 Teams meeting caused distress, but it did not find the 2019 TOIL announcement or the 2020 'take the piss' remark to be sex-related. It found that Mr Williams used strong and inappropriate language in public, and that this could create a hostile environment, but the words were directed to conduct rather than to the claimant's sex. It also did not find that the Second Respondent had said that men were better at training.

The constructive unfair dismissal claim succeeded because the grievance outcome of 11 December 2020 did not address the claimant's allegations that the Second Respondent had touched her inappropriately and had made comments amounting to sexual harassment. The tribunal held that those omissions were serious and amounted to a breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. It found that the claimant resigned on 18 December 2020 in response to that breach and had not affirmed the contract. The First Respondent did not establish a fair reason for dismissal, so the tribunal held that she was unfairly constructively dismissed. It also held that she was entitled to resign without notice and so succeeded on wrongful dismissal.