In Person For the v Respondent — 2023

The claimant, who was of Pakistani origin and had worked for BT since 2013, was summarily dismissed with effect from 29 November 2021 after an investigation into an old work laptop that had been linked to malware and a range of browsing and file activity. The tribunal found the respondent carried out a detailed and thorough investigation, accepted the accuracy of the contemporaneous notes, and rejected the claimant's explanations as inconsistent and unreliable. It accepted that the respondent genuinely believed there had been serious breaches of its IT policies and that the claimant had retained and used the old device for personal and business purposes.

The race discrimination claim was dismissed. On the June 2020 working-from-home issue, the tribunal found that the request to return to work was made to the whole shift team, that the claimant did not follow through with the request for medical evidence, and that there was no less favourable treatment because of race. It found the language allowance had been phased out generally since 2018, that the claimant retained it for longer because action had not been taken earlier, and that the comparator evidence did not assist his case. The allegations that he was ignored, treated like a criminal during the investigation, or left without responses after dismissal were also not found to be race-motivated.

The victimisation claim failed because the tribunal found the asserted protected act was the June 2020 complaint about working from home, which it did not accept as a race complaint, and it found no detriment linked to that event. The alleged locker and property issues were not shown to be connected to any protected act. The tribunal also found that, on the evidence, the claimant had twice said he had no belongings to recover when asked during the process.

The unfair dismissal claim was dismissed. The tribunal found the principal reason for dismissal was misconduct and that the respondent had a genuine belief in misconduct based on reasonable grounds after a reasonable investigation. Applying BHS v Burchell and the band of reasonable responses test, it held that dismissal was fair in the circumstances, notwithstanding the claimant's length of service and the fact that the appeal upheld the dismissal while not maintaining the theft allegation.

The unlawful deductions claim succeeded. The parties agreed the sums due during the hearing, and the tribunal recorded gross awards of £3,846.14 for overtime and £820.67 for accrued but untaken holiday pay. The total monetary award recorded by the judgment was £4,666.81 gross.