Charlotte Rose O’Neill v The Richmond Partnership — 2024

Charlotte Rose O’Neill worked for The Richmond Partnership from March 2010, and from about 2018 her main role was as a police station representative. The tribunal found that her working relationship with Suzanne Hanson was generally workable but that Ms Hanson could become blunt and difficult to approach when under pressure. The tribunal accepted that Ms Hanson had said more than once that she had no desire to continue with criminal work, and found that those comments unsettled the claimant because they came from the head of the criminal department.

The tribunal rejected the claimant’s separate argument that her duties had been unilaterally changed in a repudiatory way when LEAP was introduced. It found that opening real files, writing letters to clients and entering time on the new system were changes in method and practice, not a fundamental alteration of the contractual role. The claimant had agreed to the new tasks and had been trained in the new system, so this part of the case did not amount to a breach of contract.

The decisive event was what happened on 31 January 2023. After the claimant had raised concerns about Ms Hanson informally on or around 16 January 2023 and had heard nothing back for about two weeks, Jonathan Barker removed the claimant’s on-call phone without explanation. The tribunal found that the phone was an important tool for the claimant’s work and that its removal also affected her on-call payments. It held that the way the phone was taken, without discussion or a proper explanation, was conduct that was likely to seriously damage trust and confidence and, on the tribunal’s findings, did so. The tribunal also found that the failure to respond to the claimant’s concerns and Ms Hanson’s comments about wanting to give up criminal work contributed to the breakdown.

The tribunal held that the claimant resigned in response to that repudiatory conduct and had not affirmed the contract. It therefore found that she was constructively dismissed and, because the respondent advanced no potentially fair reason for dismissal, that the dismissal was unfair. On the ACAS Code issue, the tribunal found that the respondent had unreasonably failed to carry out a proper investigation into the written grievance and indicated that any compensatory award would be uplifted by 15% under s.207A TULRCA. No final remedy figure was decided in this judgment because the tribunal directed that there would need to be a separate remedy hearing unless the parties reached agreement.