In person For the v Respondent — 2019

The tribunal found that the claimant, who joined the Respondent in July 2015 as a Principal Technologist, worked long hours and took on additional responsibilities after her role changed under Dr Herbath and later under Mr Jenkins. It accepted that some management decisions were poorly handled, including the reallocation of Ms Aderemi and the proposal to place the claimant on a performance improvement plan after Mr Jenkins attended a difficult FASS meeting with the DfT.

The constructive unfair dismissal claim succeeded. The tribunal held that the December 2016 and March 2017 matters were breaches of the implied term of trust and confidence, but that the claimant did not resign in response to them and had waived those earlier breaches. It found that Mr Jenkins' conduct in July 2017 and on 7 September 2017 amounted to further fundamental breaches and that those events were the last straw. The claimant resigned on 10 September 2017 and the tribunal concluded that she had been constructively unfairly dismissed.

On sex discrimination, the tribunal rejected the remaining complaints, including the July 2016 '10 Reasons To Drink More Water' email, the workload and recruitment complaints, the childcare complaint, the one-to-one support complaints, the proposed PIP, and the wider allegation that Mr Jenkins repeatedly belittled her. It found insufficient primary facts or no sex-based inference for those matters. It did uphold harassment complaints related to sex arising from Mr Jenkins' July 2017 intervention in a meeting with Dr Herbath and his 7 September 2017 criticism over the KWMM presentation and removal of material. Both harassment complaints were out of time, but the tribunal extended time under section 123(1)(b) of the Equality Act 2010.

No remedy was determined in this liability judgment; the case was listed for a separate remedy hearing.