In person For the v Mr M Curtis - counsel — 2019

The claimant, a warehouse assistant in the respondent's Map unit, brought complaints of unfair dismissal and direct discrimination on grounds of religion or belief. He also had redundancy payment and other money claims in the ET1, but those were not pursued. The tribunal recorded that the claimant said he was Ahmadi, but it found no evidence that the workplace tensions he described were present in the unit as a whole, and several of the earlier incidents relied on for discrimination were not proved, trivial, or not shown to have any religious motive.

The tribunal accepted that, after a change in management in 2016, the respondent introduced a zero-tolerance policy on employees clocking in or clocking out for one another. It found that the claimant knew of that policy and knew that doing so would be gross misconduct. The claimant had already received a verbal warning in July 2017 for not fulfilling his contracted hours and a final written warning in August 2017 for unauthorised absence and leaving the depot without permission. On 16 October 2017 he left before the end of the shift and asked another warehouse assistant to clock him out.

On the unfair dismissal complaint, the tribunal found that the reason for dismissal was gross misconduct, that the respondent held a genuine belief in misconduct on reasonable grounds, and that dismissal was within the reasonable range of responses for a reasonable employer. It rejected the claimant's contention that the respondent had been trying to terminate his employment because of religion, and it found that religion had nothing to do with the dismissal.

On the religion or belief complaint, the tribunal held that the incidents relied on by the claimant were not proved, were too minor to support the allegation, or lacked evidence of discriminatory motivation. It found no practice in the respondent's establishment in 2017 that supported the claimant's case, and concluded that, save for dismissal, the complaints were out of time and it was not just and equitable to extend time under section 123 of the Equality Act 2010. The respondent's application for costs, based in part on two settlement offers of £22,000, was refused.