Case 3305933/2020 · Employment Tribunal
Ms Dyna Del Campo v Really Flexible Care Ltd — 2023
- Case reference
- 3305933/2020
- Decision date
- 27 September 2023
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Bansal
- Venue
- Watford
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Ms Dyna Del Campo
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMs Dyna Del Campo was employed by Really Flexible Care Ltd from 16 January 2017 and was promoted to Deputy Manager at Avon House. She was suspended on 19 March 2020 after an anonymous safeguarding complaint. The tribunal found that she was told only that an anonymous safeguarding issue had been raised and was not given the specific allegations. A Bedford Borough Council safeguarding enquiry followed and produced a report that upheld psychological and emotional abuse concerns, but the tribunal found that the report was not in Mr Gohel's possession when he made the dismissal decision on 8 May 2020, and that he relied on what Miss Smith told him about the Council's findings.
The tribunal found that the principal reason for dismissal was conduct and that Mr Gohel genuinely believed the claimant had committed misconduct. It accepted that the Council enquiry was the basis for his belief, but held that the respondent did not carry out its own reasonable investigation or disciplinary process, did not follow its own procedure or the ACAS Code, and did not give the claimant the chance to know and answer the precise allegations. The tribunal rejected the respondent's alternative SOSR case. It also rejected the argument that a fair procedure would have been futile, and held that the dismissal was outside the range of reasonable responses.
On remedy issues, the tribunal made no Polkey deduction because it was not persuaded there was a realistic prospect of the claimant being fairly dismissed if a proper process had been followed, and it made no reduction for contributory fault because the misconduct alleged was not proved on the evidence before it. The judgment states that the unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal claims were well founded and succeed, although paragraph 111 contains a contradictory sentence saying the wrongful dismissal claim fails. No monetary award was recorded in this liability judgment, and the case was listed to proceed to a remedy hearing on 16 October 2023.
Claims and outcomes
2 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | The tribunal found conduct was the principal reason for dismissal and accepted the respondent genuinely believed misconduct had occurred, but held the dismissal was unfair because no internal disciplinary investigation or hearing was carried out, the claimant was not told the precise allegations, and the appeal was not properly dealt with. Remedy was left to a later hearing. | Upheld | — | — |
| Wrongful dismissal | The judgment contains an internal inconsistency: paragraph 111 says this claim fails, but the heading and paragraph 112 record that the wrongful dismissal claim succeeds. The extracted outcome follows the judgment's operative conclusion. | Upheld | — | — |
Legal tests applied
20 references- s.98(1) and (2) ERA 1996
- s.98(4) ERA 1996
- Burchell test
- range of reasonable responses
- Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd v Hitt
- Shrestha v Genesis Housing Association Ltd
- A v B
- Taylor v OCS Group Ltd
- Gallagher v Abellio Scotrail Ltd
- Iceland Frozen Foods Ltd v Jones
- Leach v Office of Communications
- ACAS Code of Practice
- Polkey principle
- Software 2000 Ltd v Anderson
- s.122(2) ERA 1996
- s.123(6) ERA 1996
- s.123(1) ERA 1996
- Abernethy v Mott, Hay and Anderson
- CRO Ports London Ltd v Wiltshire
- Smith v City of Glasgow District Council
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
- Open official judgment 1 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 2 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 3 PDF on gov.uk
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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