Case 2502576/2023 · Employment Tribunal
Michelle Hepburn v The Council of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne — 2024
- Case reference
- 2502576/2023
- Decision date
- 27 September 2024
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Loy Members
- Panel members
- D Sagar, S Moules
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Michelle Hepburn
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningEmployment Judge Loy, sitting with members D Sagar and S Moules, gave a reserved judgment in which the tribunal dismissed all four of the claimant's claims arising out of the expiry and non-renewal of her one-year fixed-term contract as a Transport Assistant at Newcastle City Council. The reasonable adjustments and victimisation claims under the Equality Act 2010 were dismissed by majority (with one dissent each); the whistleblowing detriment claim under s.47B ERA 1996 and the automatic unfair dismissal claim under s.103A ERA 1996 were dismissed unanimously.
Applying the test in Fecitt to causation, the tribunal concluded that the reason the claimant's probation was extended was solely because of genuine, objective concerns about her performance, and that Nicola Jones (the relevant manager) was not influenced in any way by the protected disclosures. The tribunal found that the reason the fixed-term contract was not renewed (the operative dismissal under s.95(1)(b) ERA 1996) was that the respondent had no ongoing operational need for either a temporary or permanent Transport Assistant when the contract expired on 31 August 2023.
The PDF was truncated at 15,000 of 156,145 characters; the full reasoning on the reasonable adjustments and victimisation claims, and the dissenting members' reasoning, were not in the extracted portion.
Claims and outcomes
4 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disability discrimination | Failure to make reasonable adjustments (ss.20 and 21 EqA 2010) - majority dismissed (Mr Moules dissenting). PDF text truncated at 15,000 of 156,145 chars. | Dismissed | Disability | — |
| Victimisation | Victimisation (s.27 EqA 2010) - majority dismissed (Mr Sagar dissenting). | Dismissed | — | — |
| Whistleblowing | Detriment for protected disclosure (s.47B ERA 1996) - unanimously dismissed. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Unfair dismissal | Automatic unfair dismissal for protected disclosure (s.103A ERA 1996) - unanimously dismissed. Reason for dismissal was the expiry of the fixed-term contract operating by law (s.95(1)(b) ERA 1996), with the respondent having no ongoing operational need. | Dismissed | — | — |
Legal tests applied
7 references- ss.20 and 21 Equality Act 2010
- s.27 Equality Act 2010
- s.47B Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.103A Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.95(1)(b) Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.43B Employment Rights Act 1996
- Fecitt
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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