In person v Respondent — 2024

The Claimant worked as a mechanical engineer on the Respondent's Chubb project from August 2022. His first alleged protected disclosure, said to have been made after an online meeting on 13 October 2022, was not established on the facts: the tribunal found he probably said something about the timetable being feasible, but not that people would have to work late. The associated complaints about insufficient IT equipment, pressure to postpone leave, denial of IES modelling work and redistribution of work were not made out as detriments.

On 13 January 2023 the Claimant sent a Teams message and made a call to Mr Ingram about working past midnight and at weekends, other employees working late, apprentices working long hours and minimum wage concerns. The tribunal found that he disclosed information and believed he was doing so in the public interest, but held that those beliefs were not reasonable for other workers and, in relation to himself, were not a reasonable public-interest belief. The tribunal applied Chesterton Global Limited v Nurmohamed when considering the public interest issue. It reached the same conclusions about the disclosure said to have been made to Mr Hixson on 26 January 2023.

The tribunal rejected the complaints that being required to attend the office on 19 and 26 January 2023 was a detriment caused by the January disclosures. It found those were simply applications of the Respondent's three-days-per-week office requirement. At the meeting on 26 January 2023, Mr Hixson decided to dismiss the Claimant. The tribunal found the reasons were the number and extent of the Claimant's complaints, the effect on Mr Ingram, and the accusation that Mr Hixson had lied at interview. It found the dismissal letter of 27 January 2023, which said performance concerns had been raised when they had not, did amount to a detriment, but not one caused by protected disclosure. The tribunal therefore dismissed the whistleblowing detriment and automatic unfair dismissal complaints, applying the statutory tests and the material-influence approach in NHS Manchester v Fecitt.

The alternative dismissal routes also failed. The section 100 ERA 1996 health and safety complaint failed because it was reasonably practicable for the Claimant to raise matters through the workplace health and safety representative. The section 101A ERA 1996 working-time complaint failed because the tribunal found he had not been asked to forgo the relevant 11-hour daily rest right. The unlawful deduction from wages complaint also failed because the Respondent had correctly calculated that 2.5 days' pay could be deducted for leave taken in excess of entitlement. No monetary award was made.