Miss Kelly Arnold v Select Enterprises (South East) Limited and 1 other — 2024

Employment Judge Barrett, sitting with members Miss M Daniels and Mr L O'Callaghan, heard this matter at the East London Hearing Centre over six days in October 2024. The claimant Miss Kelly Arnold was represented by her father Mr Stewart Arnold; the respondents (Select Enterprises (South East) Limited t/a Kids Inc Nurseries, and Mrs Balvinder Kalsi) were represented by Mr Marc Ramsbottom of Peninsula UK. The claimant had worked for the First Respondent from 5 January 2015 until her resignation on 10 April 2021; events giving rise to the claim occurred in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Tribunal found the First Respondent had constructively unfairly dismissed the claimant. The remedy is to be determined at a separate hearing. The claimant's complaints of direct sexual orientation discrimination, harassment related to sexual orientation, harassment related to disability and discrimination arising from disability against both respondents were not well-founded and were dismissed.

In relation to the harassment claims, the Tribunal applied the broader 'related to' causal test under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010 (UNITE the Union v Nailard) but found nothing to suggest sexual orientation formed any part of the respondents' motivation. The single allegation of disability-related harassment (Mrs May's email of 23 March 2021 containing 18 questions) was found to be unwanted but, applying Land Registry v Grant, would not reasonably have the prescribed effect on the claimant. The discrimination arising from disability claim failed on causation, the email having been sent in connection with the claimant's stress/depression absence rather than her back condition. PDF truncated from 130,172 to 15,000 chars, so the summary is necessarily incomplete.