Miss M Duffield v London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham — 2024

The claimant alleged that she made protected disclosures to Mr Meehan on 17 February 2020 about matters concerning two colleagues, MR and AL. The tribunal found that the information given about MR did not reasonably tend to show a breach of legal obligations in relation to a long-term sickness or bullying process. It also found that the information about AL did not disclose a failure to make reasonable adjustments or a failure in a recruitment process.

The tribunal found that the claimant did not have a belief at the time that her disclosures were made in the public interest. It relied on the claimant's witness statement, in which she said she had not thought in 2020 about whether the matters were in the public interest or protected disclosures. The tribunal held that this was fatal to the claim because the alleged disclosures were not protected disclosures.

The tribunal went on to consider detriment in case it was wrong about protected disclosure. It found that Ms Stoney's description of the allegation against Mr X as rape or serious sexual assault was not a detriment to the claimant. It found that the claimant's suspension was a detriment, but that it was not on the ground of any protected disclosure. The suspension was found to have arisen from senior managers' concerns about a serious safeguarding matter not being escalated, and the tribunal found that the relevant decision-makers were not aware of the claimant's 2020 meeting with Mr Meehan.