Mr O v A Akinosho AND London Borough of Camden — 2019

This reserved judgment dealt with unfair dismissal and breach of contract; the holiday pay and arrears claims were left to another occasion. Mr Akinosho was dismissed after a disciplinary process about a 15 July 2016 assessment in which he had copied historic information from a 2001 letter into a new core assessment without recording the source or checking that it remained accurate.

Applying section 98(4) ERA 1996 and the Burchell test, the tribunal accepted that the respondent genuinely believed Mr Akinosho had acted dishonestly, but found that belief lacked reasonable grounds. It held that Mr Reece did not understand the record-keeping system or the self-population issue, that there was no evidence of deliberate falsification, and that the real failing was omitting to note the source of the information and to verify that it was still current. The tribunal concluded that dismissal was outside the range of reasonable responses.

The tribunal also found serious procedural defects. Mr Akinosho’s grievance about Mr Rigby’s stated intention to have him dismissed, and the possible involvement of Debbie May, was not considered; there were long delays at the investigation, disciplinary and appeal stages; and the appeal was not heard for more than a year. It also noted that the disciplinary hearing pursued allegations 1 and 3 even though the investigator had not upheld them, and that the eventual reason for dismissal was dishonesty rather than the misconduct charge as put to him.

On breach of contract, the tribunal held that the respondent was not entitled to dismiss without notice because the conduct found did not amount to gross misconduct. It accepted that Mr Akinosho had failed to record the source of the historic information and should have checked it, but treated that as a matter capable of being addressed by training or a first warning. The tribunal found contributory fault on his part at 5%, but no monetary award was quantified in this judgment.