In person For the v Mr P Gardner (director) — 2018

The tribunal heard claims of automatic unfair dismissal, disability reasonable adjustments, direct sex discrimination, indirect religion or belief discrimination, breach of contract for notice pay, and holiday pay. It found that the claimant worked as a general assistant from 3 November 2017 to 16 February 2018, that he had not signed the proposed contract, and that he mentioned a mental health condition or disability to Mr Gardner only in general terms in early February 2018. The tribunal accepted that the claimant did not identify PTSD, a possible traumatic brain injury, anxiety or depression, and did not explain any link between any such condition and difficulty with tills, maths or numbers.

On the disability complaint, the tribunal held that the claimant had not proved he was disabled within section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 during the relevant period. It also found that, even if he had established disability, he had not shown that working on tills put him at a substantial disadvantage, that additional till training had in any event been available, and that the respondent did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know of the specific conditions or of any alleged link between those conditions and till work.

On religion and sex, the tribunal rejected the claims that the respondent required Sunday availability or treated male staff differently when dealing with shoplifters or difficult customers. It found that the claimant was offered a Monday, Tuesday and Saturday shift pattern, never worked or was asked to work Sundays, and that the clause referring to Sundays and bank holidays was not used in practice. It also found that the shoplifter procedure applied to both sexes, and that the notice referring to a few lads was clumsy wording by someone other than Mr Gardner or Mr Rahman and did not reflect the policy.

The automatic unfair dismissal claim failed because the claimant did not bring to the respondent's attention that male staff were expected to deal with dangerous customers or that there was the health and safety issue he later alleged. The tribunal found that Mr Gardner dismissed him because he had not signed the contract, had not turned up for some shifts, and appeared unwilling to work while he dealt with a personal issue concerning a former acquaintance. On notice pay, the tribunal found that the claimant was entitled to one week's notice only and had already been paid a week's pay in excess of the work he actually did. On holiday pay, it found that 29 hours of accrued but untaken holiday worth £166.84 had been paid by the respondent, so that complaint also failed.