Mr L. Hasan v Respondent — 2022

Mr Hasan had worked in Arabic at UCL/CLIE since 2007. From 2017 onwards the tribunal found there was an unhappy and increasingly fractured team environment, with disputes about exam marking, workload, management, grievances and tribunal litigation. UCL dismissed him with notice on 15 June 2021 on the stated basis of an irreparable breakdown in working relationships and trust and confidence, and the appeal against dismissal was also rejected.

On protected disclosure, the tribunal held that the email sent on 24 May 2018 to Professor Smith about changes to exam marks was a disclosure of information, not merely an allegation. It found that Mr Hasan believed there had been wrongdoing, and that belief was held on reasonable grounds and in the public interest because the complaint concerned the integrity of the university examination system. However, the tribunal concluded that this disclosure was not the sole or principal reason for dismissal; the relevant reason was his later conduct in alleging, without evidence, that colleagues and managers were dishonest, that the investigator was not independent, and that Dr Hoffmann had forged emails.

On victimisation, the tribunal held that the first and third grievances, and grievance 2 version 1, did not amount to protected acts because they used the word victimisation in the ordinary sense of unfair treatment but did not allege a contravention of the Equality Act. Version 2 of grievance 2 did expressly allege discrimination because of race and sex, and the tribunal also treated the Employment Tribunal claims as protected acts to the extent that they raised Equality Act complaints. Even so, the tribunal found no facts from which it could infer that dismissal, or the grievance appeal outcome, was because of those protected acts.

On ordinary unfair dismissal, UCL relied on some other substantial reason: the breakdown in working relationships within CLIE and the loss of trust and confidence between Mr Hasan and the university. The tribunal accepted that reason and found it was genuine, not capricious, and that the dismissal fell within the range of reasonable responses. It relied on the repeated allegations of dishonesty and forgery, the refusal to accept the grievance outcomes, the challenge to the independence of decision-makers, and the evidence that alternative roles or mediation would not solve the underlying problem. The claims were dismissed and no monetary award was made.