Mr Ben Amunwa For the v Mr Graham Vials — 2021

Miss Saiyed moved from her GSA role into the Project Administrator/Data Co-Ordinator role in February 2019 and worked with Mr Bakshi for only one week. The tribunal accepted much of her account of that week, including criticism, denigrating remarks about colleagues, evening calls/messages, and the later blocking of her IT access, and it was critical of the Respondent's missing disclosure and the absence of retained emails, Teams messages, and grievance notes.

The harassment claim under ss 26 and 40 EqA 2010 failed. Although the tribunal accepted that the Claimant found Mr Bakshi's manner distressing and intrusive, it held that the conduct was not related to sex and that the whispered communication and out-of-hours contact were not of a sexual nature. It also rejected the s 26(3) theories, finding no basis to treat the alleged conduct as harassment because of rejection or non-submission.

The victimisation claim also failed. The tribunal accepted the grievance and appeal as protected acts, but found that the 15 February complaint to Recruitment did not amount to an allegation of an EqA contravention. It held that Miss Fox and Mr Harris rejected the grievance and recommended mediation because they were sceptical about what had happened in such a short period, and because they misunderstood the transfer and redundancy context, rather than because the Claimant had done protected acts.

The constructive unfair dismissal claim succeeded. Applying Malik v BCCI and the constructive dismissal authorities, the tribunal held that Mr Bakshi's conduct over 11 to 15 February 2019, the decision to block the Claimant's IT access on 19 February, Mrs Knight's response on 19 and 20 February, and the handling of the grievance and appeal cumulatively breached the implied term of trust and confidence. It found that the Claimant did not affirm the contract before resigning on 7 June 2019, made no contributory fault reduction, and left the Polkey issue for the remedy hearing. The holiday pay claim was recorded as dismissed upon withdrawal.