Case 2403670/2024 · Employment Tribunal

(1) Mr J Crayton (2) Mr T Jones v The Countess of Chester Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust — 2026

Case reference: 2403670/2024
Decision date: 8 May 2026
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge Ainscough
Venue: Liverpool

Indexed: 15 September 2026

Parties

2 named

Claimant

(1) Mr J Crayton (2) Mr T Jones

Respondent

The Countess of Chester Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

The tribunal upheld specified whistleblowing detriment complaints by Mr J Crayton and Mr T Jones against Countess of Chester Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It found that both claimants made a protected disclosure on 31 January 2024. Mr Crayton made a further protected disclosure on 8 February 2024.

Both claimants suffered a detriment because of the protected disclosures on 15 February 2024. The tribunal found that the respondent inappropriately interrogated them about who had emailed a board member regarding mortuary issues and said it would “get to the bottom of who had broken the chain of command.” Mr Crayton suffered a further detriment because of the protected disclosures on 16 February 2024, when the respondent removed his access to the mortuary.

The remaining complaints of detriment because of protected disclosures were unsuccessful and dismissed. The judgment records no monetary award.

Claims and outcomes

2 findings recorded

This case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Whistleblowing	Both claimants succeeded in their complaints concerning questioning on 15 February 2024. Mr J Crayton also succeeded in his complaint concerning removal of his access to the mortuary on 16 February 2024.	Upheld	—	—
Whistleblowing	The remaining complaints of detriment because of protected disclosures were dismissed. The judgment does not identify those complaints individually.	Dismissed	—	—

Official outcome judgment PDF

Gov.uk primary record

The official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.

Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

How we got this data

Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.

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