Mrs Sandra Messi v Change Grow Live — 2024

Mrs Sandra Messi applied for interim relief in a claim presented on 2 May 2024. She alleged that she had been dismissed for making a protected disclosure. The respondent's position was that she had not been dismissed, but had been suspended on 7 May 2024 because of confidentiality breaches said to arise from her disclosure, and that her access to its computer systems had been disabled.

The tribunal applied the interim relief test requiring a "pretty good chance" of success. It considered whether there was a pretty good chance that Mrs Messi had been dismissed on 2 May 2024. The tribunal recorded that there was little material supporting dismissal: nothing in writing, no P45, a May 2024 payslip, and no contemporaneous email from Mrs Messi between 2 May and 7 May protesting that she had been dismissed. The tribunal also considered it unlikely in the ordinary course that someone in the IT department would have authority to dismiss her or pass on such a message.

The tribunal concluded that Mrs Messi's case did not approach the required threshold of a pretty good chance of success on dismissal, so it was unnecessary to consider the other elements of a protected disclosure claim. The application for interim relief was dismissed.

The respondent applied for costs of the hearing in the sum of £8,176. The tribunal found the application for interim relief to be vexatious, having regard to the pattern of previous interim relief applications referred to in the judgment, and ordered that the claimant pay the respondent's costs of the application in an amount to be assessed. The amount was not determined in this judgment, and directions were given for a costs schedule and written submissions.