Mr A Edge v William Hill plc — 2020

The Claimant worked for William Hill plc as a relief manager and had told his manager that he had autism. After events on 29 November 2018, Ms Z complained that the Claimant had made inappropriate comments, while the Claimant raised concerns about Ms Z's cash management and conduct. The tribunal did not decide whether Ms Z's allegations were true, because those matters were background to the claims before it.

The tribunal found that the Claimant was constructively unfairly dismissed after he resigned on 9 April 2019. It found a cumulative repudiatory breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence, based on matters including delay in the investigation, lack of updates and timeline, failure to investigate the Claimant's allegations about Ms Z, failure to tell Ms Z to keep the investigation confidential, failure to obtain relevant evidence such as CCTV or to explain its absence, Mr Lowe's comment at mediation about a female complaint coming first, and the withholding pay issue when the Claimant's companion could not attend. The tribunal found that the grievance and appeal process meant the Claimant had not affirmed the contract, and that the breach was an effective cause of his resignation. It also found the dismissal unfair.

The direct disability discrimination claim was dismissed. The reasonable adjustments claim succeeded only on the practice of withholding pay if an employee did not attend an investigation meeting when their companion could not attend. The tribunal found that this was a PCP, that the Claimant was placed at a substantial disadvantage because he needed support in the meeting due to his autism, that he told the Respondent this on 10 January 2019, and that the reasonable adjustment of not withholding pay could and should have been made. The other pleaded PCPs and adjustments failed.

The disability harassment claim succeeded in relation to Ms Y's comment that the Claimant used Autism as a way of getting out of things. The tribunal found that this was unwanted conduct related to disability and that, when the Claimant learned of it, it had the effect of creating an offensive and hostile environment. It did not find that the reading out of Ms Y's statement was itself harassment, because the investigator was not required to edit her evidence and some of it might have assisted the Claimant.

The direct sex discrimination and sex harassment claims were dismissed. The tribunal found that Ms Z was not an appropriate comparator and considered a hypothetical female manager accused of making an inappropriate sexual comment to a junior employee. It found that the suspension, failure to investigate the Claimant's allegations, reliance on Mr Waugh's comment, confidentiality issue, investigation failings, lack of redress, and constructive unfair dismissal were not because of the Claimant's sex. It also found that the conduct relied on for sex harassment was not related to the Claimant being a man and, if that was wrong, did not objectively amount to harassment related to sex.