In Person For the v Respondent — 2022

The tribunal found that the claimant, employed from 14 October 2020 to 24 January 2021, had made four protected disclosures: on 25 November 2020 about a young person being placed in an unregistered care home run by the respondent; on 3 December 2020 about Christopher Borg not being restraint trained and being assigned a shift; on or about 28 December 2020 about TC sleeping in a young person’s room and crossing professional boundaries; and on or about 14 January 2021 about the hours worked by KR. It applied the section 43B ERA test, emphasising that the claimant needed a reasonable belief and disclosure of information, not proof that her concerns were correct.

On those protected disclosures the tribunal accepted the claimant’s evidence, supported by Charlotte Wright and Hannah Kossowska-Peck, that Joanne Henderson shouted at her, demeaned her in front of colleagues and undermined her. It found those detriments were on the ground that she had raised the disclosures. The tribunal rejected other alleged disclosures, including the 24 December 2020 telephone call, the risk-assessment point, and the alleged 17 January 2021 disclosure, and it held that the failure to issue a contract was not caused by the disclosures.

The claimant resigned by email on 17 January 2021. Applying Western Excavation and the implied term of trust and confidence in Malik, the tribunal found the principal reason for her resignation was the way Joanne Henderson treated her when she challenged the respondent about the protected disclosures, so the constructive dismissal claim succeeded as automatically unfair dismissal under section 103A ERA 1996. A remedy hearing was to be listed, and no award was determined in this judgment.