In person v Respondent — 2025

Miss F Johnson brought complaints of direct discrimination because of disability, discrimination arising from disability, failure to make reasonable adjustments and victimisation against the Home Office. The respondent accepted that she was disabled by clinical depression. The tribunal heard from Miss Johnson, Mr McLean, Ms Morrison and Mr Beach, and read a statement from Dr Jalmbrant. It noted that the appeal panel had overturned her dismissal for payroll overpayments and recommended reinstatement, a different manager, further consideration of earlier bullying and harassment allegations, continued attendance management and greater care to avoid similar overpayments.

The tribunal dismissed the direct discrimination complaint. It accepted the claimant's account of the 30 June 2023 call, but found that the points said to be made on that call showed at most disagreement about reinstatement or doubts about how unwell she was, not treatment because of disability. It also held that the requirement for a medical certificate and OH referral, Mr McLean remaining as line manager until December 2023, the OH referral information, the delay in response, the feedback about overpayments, and the temporary loss of IT access were not shown to be because of disability. Where there were delays or shortcomings, the tribunal accepted non-discriminatory explanations, including that Mr McLean had been on leave and that the IT restriction was applied as a sickness-absence policy.

The tribunal upheld the section 15 complaint of discrimination arising from disability. It found that the respondent failed to implement recommendation (3) about checking whether the earlier bullying and harassment allegations had been fully looked into and recommendation (5) about taking greater care to avoid further overpayments, and it also upheld the refusal of IT access and the incorrect pay complaint; the pay complaint was conceded. The tribunal held that the relevant something arising in consequence of disability was the claimant's absence and that the refusal of IT access was not justified in her case.

The reasonable adjustments complaint failed because most of the alleged matters were held not to be PCPs within Ishola v Transport for London, although the IT-access policy was accepted as a PCP. The tribunal did not need to work through the remaining elements of that complaint because the IT-access issue overlapped with the successful section 15 finding. Victimisation failed because, although the appeal letter of 14 March 2023 was a protected act, the tribunal found no causal link between that protected act and the alleged detriments. Remedies were left to a later hearing on 26 September 2025.