Ms T Jones, counsel For the v Respondent — 2022

The tribunal accepted that Ms Sinclair had been disabled by depression from around 2014, before she joined the respondent, but found that Heather Smith was not told about that history and did not know or perceive the claimant to have an ongoing disability when she became the claimant's line manager on 16 September 2020. The claimant's complaints arose during the end of the GSO secondment and against the background of a new project that the respondent was developing separately.

The indirect discrimination claim was based on a requirement to keep the grievance confidential during the investigation and appeal. The tribunal found that confidentiality was not absolute, because the claimant could speak to her union representative, family, friends outside the organisation, HR, staff counsel, and a counsellor funded by the respondent. It held that no group or individual disadvantage was made out, and in any event the confidentiality requirement was a proportionate way to conduct a fair grievance process. The direct discrimination allegations failed because the tribunal rejected the factual premise where necessary, or accepted innocent or managerial explanations: the claimant was not referred to as "a secondment", the US election email was a passed-on policy, the capitalised "if" in the 8 December 2020 email reflected frustration rather than disability, the 1 February 2021 meeting invite was sent by mistake, the decision to give a new project to Jess Nugent was explained by the fact that the claimant's secondment was ending and Ms Nugent had greater experience, and the future-role and reporting emails were legitimate management communications.

The harassment claim failed for the same reasons. The tribunal held that the conduct was not shown to be related to disability and, viewed in context, was not reasonably capable of amounting to harassment within section 26. It emphasised that not every unwelcome or frustrating management interaction will meet the statutory threshold.

The constructive unfair dismissal claim also failed. By June and July 2021 the claimant was on long-term absence, had received counselling and extended sick pay support, and was paid the June salary in error. The tribunal found the overpayment was accidental, that the claimant knew she had been overpaid, and that the net overpayment was £861.51. It found the respondent's correspondence about repayment and later holiday pay was measured and reasonable, and that there was no repudiatory breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence and no final straw. The claimant resigned on 16 July 2021 before the respondent had communicated its final position on the holiday-pay issue, so the claim failed.

The victimisation claim failed because the overpayment recovery correspondence was directed to recovering wages paid by mistake, not to the claimant's protected acts, which were the 29 October 2020 grievance and the 31 March 2021 tribunal claim. The tribunal found no causal link between those protected acts and the treatment complained of. All claims were dismissed and no monetary award was made.