Mr S Manners v Manchett Group Limited — 2025

Reserved judgment by Employment Judge Reid at the East London Hearing Centre by CVP. The tribunal found the claimant's continuous employment with the respondent began on 1 October 2019 (when he entered a written employment contract), not in November 2013 or October 2016 as variously claimed. Before October 2019 the claimant supplied his services through his personal services company Teeson (Kent) Limited under an unwritten contract for services with the respondent, with no need to imply a separate employment contract (applying the necessity test in Tod v Swim Wales and Plastic Omnium v Horton). The statutory redundancy payment and notice pay were therefore correctly calculated and those claims were dismissed. The claimant was, however, unfairly dismissed because the respondent's redundancy consultation procedure was outside the range of reasonable responses, although a fair process would have led to dismissal two weeks later; after credit for notice pay received, the compensatory award was £500 (loss of statutory rights only). The s.10 Employment Relations Act 1999 claim was dismissed (not applicable to a redundancy dismissal). Under s.38 Employment Act 2002, an additional award of two weeks' pay (£1,400 capped) was made because the October 2019 written statement did not state the continuous employment start date as required by s.1 ERA 1996; the higher (four-week) award was not just and equitable.