Jane Woodward v Barnard Castle Town Council — 2021

The tribunal found that Jane Woodward was employed by Barnard Castle Town Council as Deputy Town Clerk and that the council office was a small working environment in which the claimant's developing personal relationship with Councillor Roger Peat became a source of strain. The tribunal accepted that several staff and councillors came to disapprove of the relationship, and found that some of that disapproval was moral and personal rather than purely professional. It also found that the claimant had depression and anxiety, and that the respondent knew of that condition through Mr King and later through councillors.

On unfair dismissal, the respondent said the reason was an irretrievable breakdown in working relationships amounting to some other substantial reason. The tribunal rejected that as the genuine reason and as a reasonably held basis for dismissal. It found that councillor Moorhouse in particular was determined to secure the claimant's removal, that Mr King's later evidence was influenced by pressure from councillors, and that the dismissal process was built around a label of irretrievable breakdown which did not reflect the evidence. The tribunal also found the procedure unfair because the investigation was inadequate, the claimant was given late and misleading material at the dismissal hearing, and the appeal was effectively predetermined.

The tribunal dismissed the section 15 disability discrimination claim. It accepted that the claimant was angry and upset during the 19 February 2019 Dawson Room incident, but was not satisfied that her outburst or later conduct arose in consequence of her disability. It reached the same conclusion about the later suspension-related and dismissal-related steps relied on for that claim, finding that those actions were driven by the respondent's view of the claimant's conduct, the relationship with Councillor Peat, and the councillors' views of her character, rather than by something arising from disability.

The reasonable adjustments claim succeeded. The tribunal held that the practice of suspending employees facing gross misconduct allegations was a PCP and that, for this claimant, exclusion from work put her at a substantial disadvantage because her work was a coping mechanism and her mental health deteriorated during suspension. It found that the respondent knew, or at least ought reasonably to have known by 18 March 2019, that the claimant was disabled and likely to suffer that disadvantage. The reasonable adjustment identified by the tribunal was to lift the suspension and return her to work, and it held that the respondent failed to do so from 18 March 2019 onward.

The harassment claim was dismissed. The tribunal held that the pleaded conduct, including the way the allegations were framed, the suspension, the handling of the disciplinary process, the mediation requirement, and the appeal process, was not shown to relate to disability. The judgment concluded with liability only and stated that a remedy hearing would be needed to determine financial losses and any injury to feelings arising from the successful reasonable adjustments claim.