Mr A Butt v A&D Facilities Limited — 2022

Mr A Butt was a security guard at the Relay Building and was summarily dismissed on 28 October 2021 following a confrontation on 22 September 2021 with a cleaner, Rodrigo. The tribunal found the respondent genuinely believed Mr Butt had acted in an aggressive and intimidating way, relying on the CCTV, statements from Rodrigo and Zaid Hassan, and Mr Butt’s own admissions that he raised his voice, invited Rodrigo outside, and made threats or challenge-like remarks. It also found that Mr Butt had been frustrated with Rodrigo for some time and had not taken reasonable further steps to raise his concerns with management before the incident.

On the unfair dismissal complaint, the tribunal held that misconduct was the reason for dismissal and that the respondent had reasonable grounds for that belief, so dismissal itself was within the band of reasonable responses under s.98(4) ERA 1996. However, it found the procedure unfair because the handwritten witness statement was not provided at the first disciplinary meeting, the union representative was not allowed to sum up at the end of the resumed hearing, dismissal was announced in the meeting in a way that contributed to an impression of prejudgment, the investigation did not fully explore the CCTV timing issue, and the appeal was not concluded until 13 January 2022 without adequate explanation.

Although the unfair dismissal claim succeeded, the tribunal held that under Polkey a fair procedure would still have led to dismissal, and it found that the claimant’s conduct caused his dismissal. It therefore reduced both the basic and compensatory awards by 100%, so any award was extinguished. On the wrongful dismissal / notice pay claim, the tribunal made its own finding on the facts and held that Mr Butt’s behaviour was aggressive and intimidating and amounted to gross misconduct under the company policy, so the respondent was entitled to dismiss without notice and the claim failed.