Mr B Kristensen v Portman Healthcare Limited — 2022

At this preliminary hearing the tribunal considered whether a late-May 2021 meeting between the claimant and Ms Oates retained its Employment Rights Act 1996 s.111A protected conversation status, and whether the claimant had made protected disclosures about an alleged forged signature on his 2016 contract. The claimant had been employed as a dental hygienist from May 2008 until 30 September 2021, and the respondent’s case was that the meeting addressed concerns about low utilisation and his leaving the business by agreement.

The tribunal held that the meeting remained protected by s.111A. Although the claimant had not been told he could be accompanied or leave the meeting, and the notes were not verbatim, the tribunal found that the respondent was entitled to raise conduct and performance concerns and to set out the possibility of an exit or disciplinary process. It did not find the respondent’s conduct to be bullying, harassing, or otherwise improper, and it rejected the submission that the claimant had been told he would inevitably be dismissed.

On protected disclosures, the tribunal applied s.43A and s.43B ERA 1996 and the authorities it cited, including Chesterton Global Ltd v Nurmohamed, Ibrahim v HCA International and Parsons v Airplus International Ltd. It accepted that the claimant genuinely believed his signature had been forged, but found that he did not genuinely believe, at the time, that the matter was in the public interest. The tribunal characterised the matter as a private contractual dispute about his own employment contract and rights, and noted that his evidence about others was no more than that he did not know whether anyone else might be affected.

The tribunal therefore found that the claimant’s oral comments at the police-attended meeting and his later written grievance were not qualifying protected disclosures. As a result, the automatic unfair dismissal claim was struck out. The order recorded that the ordinary unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal claims would proceed to the final hearing listed for September 2023.