Miss Platt (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2025

The claimant worked as a prison officer at HMP The Mount from February 2015. After a serious attempted murder incident in 2015 and later assaults by prisoners in 2016, 2017 and 2021, he experienced PTSD, anxiety and depression and received occupational health input, counselling and medical treatment. By June 2021 the respondent accepted that he was disabled within the Equality Act 2010. The tribunal found that the respondent knew of anxiety and depression from October 2017 and of PTSD from August or October 2020.

The tribunal held that the unfair dismissal claim was out of time. It found that, although the claimant had been affected by his dismissal, he was able to deal with appeals, grievances and other administrative tasks by February and March 2022, and it was reasonably practicable for him to present the claim by 17 March 2022. By contrast, the disability claims were in time because the tribunal treated the grievances and appeal outcome as part of a continuing situation ending on 22 February 2022, so the ET1 presented on 24 March 2022 was within the extended limitation period.

On the merits, direct disability discrimination was dismissed. The tribunal found that Ms Price's dismissal decision and Mr Cartwright's appeal decision were based on the claimant's sickness absence record and his inability to identify a return date, rather than on disability itself. The tribunal accepted that some of the respondent's calculations and reasoning were flawed, but concluded that a hypothetical comparator with the same absence history for a non-disability reason would have been treated in the same way.

The tribunal upheld the claim for discrimination arising from disability in relation to allegations 6.1.1, 6.1.4, 6.1.5, 6.1.6 and 6.1.7. It found that Mr Evans initially agreed a 12-week phased return, then changed the position after discussion of the claimant's disability-related need for a longer phased return, referred him to a full FARM meeting, and later sent an amended risk assessment reducing the phased return. It also found that Ms Price told the claimant to comply with the amended risk assessment or go off sick, that the attendance management/capability process was applied because of sickness absence linked to disability, and that the dismissal and appeal were driven by the same disability-related absence and phased-return issues. Allegations 6.1.2, 6.1.3 and 6.1.8 were dismissed.

The reasonable adjustments claim also succeeded. The tribunal accepted that two provisions, criteria or practices placed the claimant at a substantial disadvantage: the requirement to attend work and the delay in the disciplinary investigation. It found that the respondent should have progressed the disciplinary process more quickly and should have continued the phased return once it had begun, rather than stopping the adjustment from 28 October 2021. The tribunal accepted the respondent's legitimate aims, but found that less discriminatory steps were available. The trade union detriment/dismissal claim was dismissed: most allegations were out of time, and the in-time appeal and grievance allegations were dismissed because the tribunal found insufficient evidence that trade union activity played a part in the decisions. A remedy hearing was listed for 4 and 5 November 2025, so no tribunal award was made in this judgment.