Mrs Nicola Blackwell v Smart Tax & Accountancy Ltd — 2024

This was a final liability hearing in which Mrs Nicola Blackwell brought claims arising out of her employment as a payroll executive with Smart Tax & Accountancy Ltd. The tribunal found that the respondent was a small company in which AJ effectively ran the business, that VK managed the payroll team, and that the relationship between AJ and VK was not disclosed to the claimant when AJ handled her grievances. On the race discrimination claim, the tribunal rejected the relied-upon incidents, including the Diwali conversation, Teams-call complaints, the use of Hindi, and the later dismissal itself, as evidence of treatment because of race. It found that the claimant was not directly discriminated against and that the dismissal was instead caused by the breakdown in her relationship with VK and the complaints she had made about VK.

The victimisation claim succeeded. The tribunal held that the claimant made protected acts in her informal grievance on 30 November 2021 and her formal grievance on 2 February 2022, both alleging racial discrimination. It found that the dismissal was a detriment and that the respondent's stated capability reason was not the true reason for ending employment. The tribunal rejected the respondent's case that the claimant had made repeated serious errors, noting the lack of documentary support for the alleged error logs, the fact that she had passed probation and received a pay rise, and that the formal capability process was started only after her grievance appeal had failed.

The tribunal also found that the grievance process was tainted by AJ's failure to disclose that VK was his mother, and it criticised his role in investigating and deciding issues affecting her. It concluded that the complaints process and the later capability dismissal were not genuine, that no meaningful further investigation was carried out after the 28 March 2022 meeting, and that the dismissal had been predetermined. The tribunal allowed itself to treat the dismissal as a victimisation detriment despite the way the preliminary issues had been framed, referring to Parekh v London Borough of Brent and London Luton Airport Operations Ltd v Levick.

The harassment claim was dismissed because the tribunal did not accept that the WhatsApp material was about the claimant, and it found that VK's response to the pay issue did not meet the statutory test for unwanted conduct creating a hostile environment. The breach of contract and unlawful deduction from wages claims were also dismissed. The tribunal found that the claimant had been paid her net wages, that the deductions complained of were lawful deductions for tax and national insurance, and that any issue was with HMRC's records rather than an unlawful deduction by the respondent.