Jennifer Webb v Persimmon Homes Ltd — 2025

Jennifer Webb was employed by Persimmon Homes Limited as a Customer Care Coordinator from 1 July 2021 until her dismissal on 17 March 2023. The tribunal recorded that the unfair dismissal claim had already been struck out on 2 January 2024 because she did not have the qualifying service, so the March 2025 hearing concerned only direct age discrimination. The tribunal applied the section 13 Equality Act 2010 two-stage approach together with the section 136 burden of proof provisions.

The tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the customer care work was reorganised in December 2022, that Hunt Team calls rang simultaneously across the relevant phones, and that the claimant was not given a materially greater workload than younger colleagues. It found that a customer survey received by the managing director on 8 February 2023 led to an investigation, which identified 13 complaints naming the claimant for delayed responses and poor customer service, together with failures to record actions on COINS and to follow the revised reporting process. On that basis, the tribunal found the dismissal followed conduct concerns and not age.

Each pleaded age discrimination allegation failed. The tribunal found no primary facts from which it could infer discrimination in relation to the alleged advertisement of the role, the notice given for the disciplinary hearing, the conduct of the hearing, the accusation of misconduct, the alleged increased workload or tighter deadlines, or the work-from-home allegation. It accepted that the claimant had been permitted to work from home on two earlier occasions and that the only refused request in time, on 13 March 2023, was not refused because of age. The complaint of direct age discrimination was dismissed.