Michael Cameron v The Riverside Group Limited — 2025

On 10 February 2020 the claimant sent Hilary Milne a whistleblowing email with attachments. The tribunal held that paragraphs 1-6 and 8-9 of the attached document disclosed information about financial and reporting issues at the respondent and were made in the public interest, with a reasonable belief that they tended to show a failure to comply with legal obligations. The relevant obligations were identified as the Regulator of Social Housing's Governance and Financial Viability Standard. The tribunal rejected the allegation in paragraph 7 about Mr Keegan being intoxicated at work and found no protected disclosure under the health and safety limb.

The claimant's s47B detriment claim failed. The tribunal held that alleged detriments before 17 February 2020 were out of time, and that the later allegations either were not proved, were not detriments, or were not done on the ground that the claimant had made a protected disclosure. It found no evidential basis for the claimed deletion of his profile or blocking of Sequel and Citrix, and no reliable link between the disclosure and the way the respondent handled his grievances and meetings. Ms Milne did not provide the written summary required by the whistleblowing policy, but that omission was treated as an administrative failure rather than retaliation for the disclosure.

The s103A automatic unfair dismissal claim was also dismissed. The tribunal found that by 12 February 2020 the claimant's relationship with Mr Keegan and Mr Johnson's view of his performance and behaviour had deteriorated to the point that termination was already in prospect, and that the 26 March 2020 dismissal was driven by those concerns, the claimant's sickness absence record, and the practical pressures of the COVID-19 lockdown. Although the dismissal letter of 30 March 2020 was blunt and the respondent had not applied its performance, disciplinary or absence procedures, the tribunal held that the protected disclosure was not the reason, or principal reason, for the dismissal. No remedy was awarded because both claims were dismissed.