Case 2600687/2020 · Employment Tribunal

Ms S Ready v Nottinghamshire Independent Domestic Abuse Service — 2021

Case reference: 2600687/2020
Decision date: 22 March 2021
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge Butler
Venue: Nottingham

Indexed: 23 May 2026

Parties

2 named

Claimant

Ms S Ready

Respondent

Nottinghamshire Independent Domestic Abuse Service

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

Ms Ready was employed by Nottinghamshire Independent Domestic Abuse Service from 1 August 2016 as Director of Service Delivery and Development. After staff concerns were raised in July and August 2019, she was suspended on 11 September 2019 and later faced disciplinary allegations about holiday and absence irregularities, a GDPR breach, and attending a networking event while suspended. Mr Turton dismissed her on 26 November 2019, and Mr Brady later upheld the GDPR and networking-event findings on appeal while overturning the holiday and absence allegation.

Applying section 98 ERA 1996 and the Burchell test, the tribunal accepted that the respondent genuinely believed misconduct had occurred and that there were initially reasonable grounds for concern. It found, however, that the investigation was not sufficiently thorough in material respects. Mr Turton did not make proper enquiries about the networking event or the GDPR allegation, and Mr Brady relied heavily on those findings without adequately investigating whether Ms Ready had opened the email attachments or whether Mr Bernacki, who sent the information, should have known not to disclose it. The tribunal also found there was no reliable evidence that the alleged breach had been reported to the ICO.

The tribunal rejected the respondent's alternative case that the dismissal was justified by a breakdown in trust and confidence. It also held that Ms Ready was not guilty of gross misconduct. Although she did not answer all of Ms Laing's questions during the investigation stage, the tribunal did not treat that as culpable contributory conduct because she later engaged with the disciplinary and appeal process.

The tribunal therefore held that Ms Ready was unfairly and wrongfully dismissed. It found that she had a one-month notice period that had not been paid, but it made no quantified monetary award in this judgment and listed the matter to proceed to a remedy hearing. The holiday pay claim was dismissed because the evidence on holiday figures was inconsistent and unreliable.

Claims and outcomes

3 findings recorded

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Unfair dismissal	The tribunal held that the reason for dismissal was conduct and accepted that the respondent genuinely believed the claimant had committed misconduct. It nevertheless found that the investigation and appeal did not go far enough on the key allegations about the networking event and the GDPR breach, so summary dismissal was outside the range of reasonable responses.	Upheld	—	—
Wrongful dismissal	The tribunal found the claimant was not guilty of gross misconduct and recorded that her notice period was one month, for which she had not been paid. This corresponded to the notice-pay issue raised in the claim.	Upheld	—	—
Holiday pay	The tribunal dismissed the holiday pay claim because the figures were difficult to understand and inconsistent, and there was no reliable evidence that the claimant was owed accrued but unpaid holiday pay.	Dismissed	—	—

Legal tests applied

6 references

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

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