Mrs. L. Gaidam v Voyage 1 Limited — 2019

The Claimant, a Moldovan Senior Support Worker, was dismissed following allegations about her handling of an incident involving a service user on 9 May 2017. The Tribunal accepted that the Respondent dismissed her for misconduct, but found the investigation, disciplinary hearing and appeal were inadequate. Relevant witnesses were not interviewed, disputed statements were relied on despite challenges to their accuracy, and the decision letters did not properly resolve the conflicting evidence. The dismissal was therefore unfair.

The Tribunal dismissed the race discrimination claim. It found no evidence that the disciplinary process, dismissal, appeal outcome or DBS referral was because the Claimant was non-British or Moldovan. Although there was evidence of workplace ill feeling and some evidence about how Ms Mayes spoke to non-British staff, the Tribunal did not find facts from which it could conclude that the pleaded detriments were because of race.

The whistleblowing claims were also dismissed. The Tribunal found that the ABC report relied on by the Claimant was a routine internal monitoring record and did not amount to a qualifying protected disclosure. The later complaint email was found to be a complaint about Ms Mayes rather than a whistleblowing disclosure, and not made in the wider public interest. The breach of contract claim about a 2016 pay rise was dismissed because the Claimant did not show any contractual entitlement to the increase.

On unfair dismissal remedy issues, the Tribunal declined to make a Polkey deduction because it could not predict the outcome of a fair process. It found the Claimant had raised her voice contrary to support guidelines and failed to complete an incident report, and concluded she should bear 20% responsibility for her dismissal. Remedy was not determined in this judgment.