Narayan Acharya v Waltham Forests Services Ltd — 2022

Narayan Acharya was employed by Waltham Forests Services Ltd from 18 February 2008 until his dismissal on 4 May 2021, having transferred under TUPE in 2018. The tribunal found that on 21 March 2021 he saw a man enter the Town Hall complex at about 2am and drink from a bottle, later concluded on the balance of probabilities to have contained alcohol. When the same man was later found unresponsive and died, the claimant reported the incident, contacted senior managers and briefed the incoming shift. The respondent suspended him and dismissed him for gross misconduct on the basis that he had failed to follow procedure, failed to escalate the matter to security and failed to monitor the individual properly.

The tribunal held that the respondent did not genuinely believe, on reasonable grounds, that there was a known unwritten procedure requiring CCTV operatives to report every instance of a person drinking on the Town Hall complex to security. It found that the respondent had relied too heavily on one answer from Mohammed Ali, who did not usually work as a CCTV operator, and that the respondent's own CCTV tasks document referred to parks being monitored for alcohol drinkers committing anti-social behaviour, not to people merely drinking. The tribunal also found that there was no reasonable basis for treating the claimant's conduct as requiring escalation in the absence of anti-social behaviour, which the dismissal letter accepted was not present.

The tribunal further found that it was not reasonable to conclude that the claimant should have returned later to monitor the individual, and noted that a written policy introduced in September 2021 covered the same kind of situation but did not refer to that step. It found the disciplinary process unfair because the chair had approached the hearing with a closed mind and relevant evidence was not properly considered, including statements from other employees, the CCTV task document, the claimant's work record and length of service. The tribunal also found that the conduct alleged did not fit the respondent's own examples of gross misconduct, that the claimant had an exemplary 13-year record with no previous discipline, and that dismissal was not within the band of reasonable responses.

The unfair dismissal claim was therefore upheld and the tribunal made no Polkey reduction and no reduction for contributory conduct. On the wrongful dismissal/breach of contract issue, the tribunal held that the claimant was not guilty of gross misconduct and that his 12-week notice period had not been paid, so that claim also succeeded. Remedy was left to a later hearing listed for 3 April 2023, and the judgment records only that some remedy matters, including basic award and notice pay, had been agreed in principle without stating any sums.