Mrs Alka Puri v Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution Care Company Limited — 2019

Mrs Alka Puri, a care assistant at Devonshire Court, was dismissed for gross misconduct after an allegation from a new colleague, Jodey Headley, that on 18 April 2018 she handled resident J roughly during personal care. The tribunal treated the dismissal as a conduct dismissal and applied section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, asking whether the employer had a reasonable belief based on a reasonable investigation and whether dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses.

The tribunal found the investigation was too narrow. Mrs Barton interviewed only Mrs Puri and Jodey, did not investigate other staff who had long experience of the claimant caring for J, did not explore Jodey's lack of moving-and-handling training or the fact that she had been added to the roster despite still being in training, and did not speak to J herself. The tribunal also found the employer did not properly examine how the complaint emerged the next day or the role of the trainer who first heard Jodey's account. Mrs O'Connor was aware of a separate safeguarding conclusion that abuse had occurred, but that was not shared with the claimant and was not part of a fair internal fact-finding exercise.

At the disciplinary hearing, the tribunal found Mrs O'Connor approached the matter as proved unless Mrs Puri could explain it away, and rejected the claimant's evidence about routine, J's independence, and her long experience of caring for J. Dismissal was held to be within the range of reasonable responses, and the appeal process was not itself found to be unfair, but the dismissal was unfair because the employer had not carried out a reasonable investigation from which it was reasonable to hold the belief in guilt. The tribunal rejected contributory fault and made no reduction for conduct.

On remedy, the tribunal found Mrs Puri earned an average net weekly wage of £352.71 and secured new work from 21 January 2019, 32 weeks after dismissal. It accepted her mitigation during the intervening period and calculated gross loss, including pension loss, at £11,512.45, added £450 for loss of statutory rights, and deducted net earnings in mitigation of £6,399.64. It awarded a basic award of £3,596.18 and a compensatory award reduced by 60% under the Polkey principle, producing a total award of £5,821.30.