Mr S Deegan v Globalgrange Ltd & others — 2017

Mr Deegan was employed by Globalgrange from 2 April 2003 to 16 July 2018 on a salary of about £77,000 a year. He brought claims for whistleblowing detriment, ordinary and automatic unfair dismissal, and wrongful dismissal. At the start of the hearing the complaints against Mrs Linda Bekoe were withdrawn by consent.

The whistleblowing case centred on emails sent on 10, 17 and 22 November 2017. The tribunal found that PID1 disclosed information about Mrs Bekoe, but that Mr Deegan did not reasonably believe it tended to show a criminal offence or breach of legal obligation, and did not reasonably believe it was made in the public interest. It found that his emails were driven by the internal family dispute and factional loyalties rather than by a public-interest concern. PID2 could only partly be treated as information, namely the alleged disclosure of PID1 and its authorship to Mrs Bekoe, but again the tribunal found no public-interest belief. PID3 was treated as a complaint rather than a qualifying disclosure.

On the detriment allegations, the tribunal held that some complaints did not amount to actionable detriment at all. It found that the bonus complaint failed because no 2017 bonus recommendation was made for the claimant, the grievance complaint failed because he had been told to put any grievance in writing, and the covert recording by Ms Li was her unilateral act and not something done on the ground of any protected disclosure. Detriments 1, 2, 4 and 7 were also outside the primary limitation period, and the tribunal rejected the attempt to treat them as a continuing act or series.

The dismissal-related complaints turned on the allegation that, in December 2017, Mr Deegan solicited Ms Arora to leave for GHS2. The tribunal accepted Ms Arora's evidence, supported by the contemporaneous text messages, and rejected the claimant's case that the allegation was fabricated or induced by a bribe. It accepted that the disciplinary process had imperfections, including the lack of a separate investigation stage, Ms Gill's questioning style, the absence of a deadline for further evidence, Mr Das's mistaken call to the claimant's wife, and the delay in the appeal outcome, but held that none of those matters showed detriment caused by any protected disclosure. Detriments 8-10 were therefore dismissed.

The ordinary unfair dismissal claim failed because the reason for dismissal was the employer's belief that the claimant had solicited Ms Arora to join GHS2, which was a conduct reason and fell within the band of reasonable responses. The tribunal also rejected the s103A automatic unfair dismissal case. The wrongful dismissal claim failed because the solicitation of Ms Arora and Ms Chaudhary, together with repeated breaches of the suspension instruction not to contact colleagues, amounted to repudiatory conduct and forfeited any right to notice. The tribunal said that, had unfair dismissal succeeded, it would have made no basic or compensatory award because it would have found the claimant's own misconduct caused or contributed to the dismissal. Since all claims failed, no award was made and the proceedings were dismissed.