In person For the v Mr S Crawford — 2020

Ms Uzuegbu worked for Hestia Housing and Support Limited from 14 January 2008 until her dismissal on 5 December 2019. The tribunal held that the principal reason for dismissal was conduct, in particular the respondents' belief that she had shouted at or within the hearing of service users. It rejected the alternative suggestion that dismissal was justified by an irretrievable breakdown in trust and confidence, because that case did not feature clearly in the dismissal or appeal letters and the evidence did not show that the working relationship had become impossible.

The tribunal found that the dismissal was unfair under s.98(4) ERA 1996. It considered the investigation report to be one-sided and materially misleading in places, and found that Mrs Read and Miss Chandler were led into a mistaken understanding of the evidence about shouting. It also found that the strongest service-user complaints dated from May 2019, had already been dealt with informally by Mr Evans and closed with an action plan by 17 June 2019, and that there was no evidence of continuing problems after that period. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had also raised a grievance about Ms Warsame on 14 May 2019, but found that this point was not properly investigated even though the later allegations arose in the same short period.

Further procedural criticisms included the failure to interview Ms Hippolyte, the claimant's line manager, before dismissal; inadequate notice of the allegations in the 5 November 2019 letter; delay in the investigation; and unfair reliance at appeal stage on matters not put to the claimant, including the Mr Wells email exchange and minutes of a mediation meeting she had never seen. The tribunal said that for the June 2019 email conduct, a formal warning would have been the reasonable step rather than dismissal. It also recorded that the claimant apologised for the emails and that some evidence showed the behaviour issues were confined to a short period in May 2019.

On Polkey, the tribunal refused to reduce compensation on the basis that the claimant had been working for London Cyrenians Housing Limited. It accepted her evidence that she had disclosed that work to Mr Evans and held that the respondent had not proved she was in breach of the contract clause relied on. Remedy was left to a later remedy hearing, so no award was determined in this judgment.