Case 2404870/2022 · Employment Tribunal
Mr K E Leigh v The Governing Body of Corpus Christi Roman Catholic High School — 2024
- Case reference
- 2404870/2022
- Decision date
- 23 April 2024
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Franey
- Venue
- Manchester
- Panel members
- Ms A Roscoe, Mr P Dobson
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr K E Leigh
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMr K E Leigh, the school’s Site Manager, resigned on 25 March 2022 after a disciplinary hearing at which the headteacher told him that the outcome would be a second written warning. He alleged that the school had committed a repudiatory breach of contract by allowing bullying allegations to be made against him, by mishandling the investigation and disciplinary process, by failing to support him, and by handling his return to work and GDPR concerns improperly. He also pursued notice pay, holiday pay, and a marriage discrimination complaint, although the discrimination complaint was withdrawn during the hearing on 14 February 2024.
The tribunal held that the respondent had not committed any repudiatory breach of contract and that the claimant’s resignation was not a dismissal within section 95(1)(c) Employment Rights Act 1996, so the unfair dismissal claim failed. Applying the Western Excavating and Malik lines of authority, it accepted that the respondent could be criticised for some delay in starting the formal investigation and for aspects of the data-handling process, but found that those matters did not objectively destroy or seriously damage trust and confidence. It rejected the allegations that the school should have separated the claimant from James Simpkin, altered his line manager, carried out immediate risk assessments, or interviewed the claimant’s wife, finding that the school had reasonable cause for the steps it took.
The tribunal also rejected the challenge to the investigation and disciplinary process. It found that Ms Witham’s investigation was not biased, that the formal process was justified by the grievance-like complaint made by Mr Simpkin, that the disciplinary hearing was properly convened, and that Mr Hankin was entitled to conclude that the findings warranted a second written warning rather than dismissal. Because there was no dismissal, the notice pay claim also failed. The holiday pay claim was dismissed because the claimant did not prove that five days of carried-over leave remained unpaid at termination, and no monetary award was made.
Claims and outcomes
4 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | Constructive dismissal allegation. The tribunal found no repudiatory breach of contract and held that the claimant’s resignation was not a dismissal within section 95(1)(c) Employment Rights Act 1996. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Breach of contract | Notice pay depended on a constructive dismissal finding. Because there was no dismissal and no repudiatory breach, the notice pay claim failed. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Marriage or civil partnership discrimination | The direct discrimination complaint was withdrawn during the hearing on 14 February 2024; the judgment records it as dismissed upon withdrawal. | Withdrawn | Marriage / civil partnership | — |
| Holiday pay | The claimant did not prove that five days of carried-over leave remained unpaid when his employment ended. | Dismissed | — | — |
Legal tests applied
9 references- section 95(1)(c) Employment Rights Act 1996
- Western Excavating (ECC) Ltd v Sharp
- Malik and Mahmud v Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA
- Frenkel Topping Limited v King
- London Borough of Waltham Forest v Omilaju
- Kaur v Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
- Waltons v Dorrington
- Goold WA (Pearmak) Ltd v McConnell
- Wigan Borough Council v Davies
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe 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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