In person For the v Respondent — 2023

The tribunal held that the claimant’s email to Karen Lord on 18 October 2020 was a protected disclosure. It found that the email disclosed information about management practices, employees being pulled off the shop floor for informal written investigations, and partners being stressed and anxious about their futures. The tribunal accepted that the claimant reasonably believed the matters raised tended to show that the health or safety of individuals might be endangered and that the disclosure was made in the public interest, on the basis that it concerned the wellbeing of a group of employees rather than only the claimant himself.

The claim nevertheless failed because the tribunal was not satisfied that the dismissal was because of the protected disclosure. It found that the investigation into the claimant’s Oxford Street application had been triggered by a separate report from another partner on 16 September 2020, before the disclosure email. The tribunal also found that Karen Lord’s and Ian Wallis’s response to the email was supportive rather than adverse, and that neither Connor Donnelly nor Dominic Kynt appeared to have treated the whistleblowing email as part of the dismissal decision.

The tribunal criticised the fairness of the investigation and disciplinary process in relation to the alleged dishonesty on the application form. It found that Mr Donnelly did not bring a fair and open mind to the investigation and that Mr Kynt had already prejudged the matter before the disciplinary hearing. The tribunal held that it was unreasonable to dismiss the claimant for dishonesty when Mr Kynt had never looked at the application form, had not provided it to the claimant, and the form did not ask for the claimant’s full employment history. It also found that the managers involved had been influenced by inaccurate and prejudicial allegations about the claimant’s earlier employment at Stratford.

Although the tribunal said that, had the claimant been able to pursue an ordinary unfair dismissal claim, the dismissal would have been grossly unfair, it ultimately concluded that the evidence did not support an inference that the protected disclosure was the reason, or principal reason, for dismissal. The whistleblowing claim was therefore dismissed and no remedy was awarded.