In Person For the v Respondent — 2020

Mr C Storey began work with Tenterden Schools Trust on 8 January 2018 as an NQT computer science teacher. He raised concerns about a year 11 student who had made pipe bomb threats and had been researching explosives and The Anarchist's Cookbook on school computers. The respondent made a PREVENT referral and the police concluded that the student was not a risk. The claimant later went off sick with stress, received an overall D grade in his second-term NQT assessment, and was the subject of disciplinary and grievance proceedings about matters including other work, alleged hacking-related conduct, threats of legal action, and alleged attempts to obtain settlement funds.

The tribunal held that the claimant's emails, meeting comments and grievance were not protected disclosures within s.43B ERA 1996. Although it accepted that he believed some matters were in the public interest, it found that he had not identified any relevant legal obligation, had not shown a belief in a likely risk to health and safety, and had not shown deliberate concealment by the respondent. It also found that some of the later correspondence was aimed at negotiating an exit package rather than making disclosures in the public interest.

Because there were no qualifying disclosures, both the automatic unfair dismissal claim and the whistleblowing detriment claim failed. The tribunal also went on to find, in the alternative, that the alleged detriments were not made out or were not caused by any disclosure: the timetable change had a staffing rationale, the NQT assessment was a genuine professional assessment, the alleged swearing by the HR director was not proved, and the claimant had chosen not to attend the disciplinary and grievance meetings.

The wrongful dismissal claim also failed. On the evidence before it, the tribunal found that the respondent had a genuine basis to investigate the allegations and that the claimant's conduct cumulatively amounted to gross misconduct. It held that the respondent was contractually entitled to dismiss him without notice or notice pay. The tribunal's final decision was that all claims were dismissed.