Ms A O Adoh v Kido Schools UK Limited — 2018

The claimant was employed from 2 September 2017 as an Early Years Educator/French teacher in the respondent nursery. The tribunal found that her probationary period was extended because of absences, that she had been told to keep her mobile phone in the manager's office safe rather than the staff room, and that the dismissal followed concerns about lateness, mobile phone policy compliance, and events on 24 January 2018. The tribunal also found that the appeal decision was upheld on the basis that she had stored her phone in the staff room when it should have been locked in the office.

On whistleblowing, the tribunal found that the claimant made three protected disclosures: a complaint to Naziya about no injury forms after one child hit another on the head in January 2018; a complaint that vegetarian food had been in contact with meat in December 2017 or January 2018; and a complaint that a baby was being put down to sleep without being properly winded in November or December 2017. It did not accept that she made a disclosure about the garden risk assessments. Although the tribunal held that the three accepted disclosures were qualifying disclosures made in the public interest and to her employer, it found no detriment flowing from them and no link between the disclosures and the dismissal, so both whistleblowing claims were dismissed.

On discrimination, the tribunal found that the claimant was disabled within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010 by reason of fibroids, anaemia and hypothyroidism throughout her employment. However, the direct disability discrimination claim failed because the tribunal found that a hypothetical comparator in the same circumstances would also have been dismissed. The section 15 claim also failed because the tribunal held that the real reason for dismissal was lateness, behaviour on 24 January 2018, and failure to follow the mobile phone policy, and that the lateness relied on was not shown to be caused by the claimant's disability.

The age discrimination claim failed because the tribunal accepted the manager's evidence that she was making a general comment about getting older, not a discriminatory remark. The race discrimination claim failed because the tribunal accepted the respondent's explanation that the claimant's photograph was removed from the staff board because the accompanying text wrongly stated that she had already achieved a Level 3 qualification, and later all staff photographs were removed for replacement with professional photographs. As all claims were dismissed, the tribunal recorded that there was no need for a remedy hearing.