Mr K Obakpolor v City & Essex Ltd — 2018

The tribunal found that Mr K Obakpolor was employed by City & Essex Ltd under one contract of employment from 16 May 2011, with addendums varying his placement, hours and locations. Although the disciplinary outcome email said his employment at ID was terminated on 25 April 2018, the tribunal held that the claimant remained employed under the same contract, continued working at NUK, and resigned only on 29 September 2018. On that basis there was no dismissal by the respondent, so the ordinary unfair dismissal claim and the automatically unfair dismissal claim failed.

At the disciplinary meeting on 25 April 2018, the claimant said words to the effect of asking whether it was appropriate for someone to offer him cocaine three times. The tribunal accepted that this was a disclosure of information that could tend to show a criminal offence concerning the use or supply of class A drugs, but it found that the claimant did not reasonably believe he was making the disclosure in the public interest. The tribunal relied on the timing of the disclosure, the claimant's inconsistent evidence about when the alleged incidents occurred, and the absence of a credible explanation for not raising the matter earlier with AC, Ms Ribeiro, or at the start of the disciplinary hearing. It referred to Chesterton Global Ltd (and Verman) v Nurmohamed on the public-interest test.

The tribunal also found that, because the complaint related to X rather than the respondent, section 43C required the disclosure to be made to X or to a person with legal responsibility for X, and that making it to City & Essex Ltd via Ms Ribeiro did not satisfy that requirement. The detriment claim under section 47B therefore failed, and the tribunal said that even if there had been a protected disclosure, the removal from the ID contract had already been decided and was not caused by the disclosure. No remedy hearing was needed, and no award was made, although the tribunal noted communication issues and some appeal-process irregularities in the respondent's evidence.