Mr C McPherson v Health Vision UK Limited — 2025

Mr C McPherson worked for Health Vision UK Limited as a care assistant from 30 May 2020 until 17 July 2023 on a zero-hours contract. The dispute arose after an incident on 19 May 2023 at the Kensal office over a malfunctioning work phone. The tribunal found that the respondent investigated allegations arising from that incident and from complaints by service users, and that Mr Hassan and Mr Doherty had reasonable grounds to believe the claimant had committed gross misconduct in relation to his conduct towards staff and service users.

The unfair dismissal claim succeeded because the tribunal found faults in the procedure, not because it rejected the substance of the misconduct allegations. It held that the claimant was not given a fair process, including failure to share a recording of a call considered by the dismissing officer, use at appeal of more detailed or inconsistent material than had been provided to the claimant, and other documentary deficiencies in the investigation, disciplinary and appeal stages. The tribunal nevertheless found that a fair process would have led to dismissal anyway, and said the claimant would have been dismissed about four weeks later than he was in fact dismissed, so any remedy was limited to a basic award and a compensatory award capped at four weeks' net pay.

The remaining claims were dismissed. The notice pay breach of contract complaint failed because, given the gross misconduct findings, the respondent was entitled to dismiss without notice; the tribunal also rejected the claimant's related contract-status and ID badge points. The direct age discrimination claim failed because the tribunal found the claimant had not established facts from which discrimination could be inferred and accepted that the dismissal was for conduct, not age. The direct race and religion-or-belief discrimination claims failed because the race case did not identify the treatment complained of, and the religion-or-belief case was vague, non-specific and unsupported by sufficient evidence.

The age-related harassment complaint was treated as out of time. The tribunal accepted the claimant's account only at its highest, namely that a remark was made in autumn 2022, but held that it was a one-off and self-contained allegation presented well outside the statutory time limit and that there was no adequate explanation to justify extending time.