Mr P Tilson v British United Provident Association Limited — 2018

At a hearing before Employment Judge Joffe sitting with Ms S Pendle and Ms E Flanagan, the respondent conceded the wrongful dismissal claim at the outset. The tribunal therefore upheld wrongful dismissal. The claimant's direct sex discrimination claim was dismissed.

The tribunal found that the claimant joined the respondent on 8 May 2017 and later had difficulties with his line manager, Ms Smith, and with performance concerns that led to a performance improvement plan in September 2018. It preferred Ms Mansell's account of the meetings in which the claimant said he raised concerns, and found that he did not on balance raise a formal grievance about Ms Smith at those meetings. Where he did raise concerns, Ms Mansell directed him to the grievance procedure.

A grievance was later brought by Ms Decker and investigated by Mr Hunt. The tribunal found that Mr Hunt's investigation was inadequate and that he lacked experience, training and HR support. It found that he did not initially identify the grievant to the claimant, did not put all of the allegations to him in detail, and did not conduct the investigation in a sufficiently forensic way. However, it concluded that these failings were explained by lack of experience and support rather than by sex.

The tribunal held that Ms Smith and Ms Decker were not appropriate actual comparators. It also rejected the arguments that a hypothetical female comparator would have been treated differently in relation to accompaniment at the grievance meeting, the interviewing of witnesses, the disclosure of the allegations, the adequacy of the investigation before dismissal, or the decision not to pay notice. It found no facts from which it could infer that sex played any role in those decisions.

The tribunal accepted that the dismissal documents went further than the evidence justified by referring to concerns about the claimant's attitude towards women, but it held that this did not establish direct sex discrimination. The summary dismissal was found to be wrongful, but no remedy figure was fixed in this decision. The tribunal directed the parties to try to agree remedy, and if necessary to write in with dates for a short remedy hearing.