In person For the v Mr Dixon, HR Consultant — 2023

The claimant was employed as a delivery service driver, first through an agency from 25 June 2018 and then permanently from 17 September 2018. He was dismissed on 6 November 2018 with payment in lieu of one week's notice. The tribunal noted that he did not have two years' continuous service, so he could not pursue ordinary unfair dismissal, and it distinguished that position from the whistleblowing claims under s.103A and s.47B ERA 1996.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant raised concerns to Mr Latta and Mr Francis after a drink with Mr Rickwood on 21 September 2018, and that he later provided a statement on 30 October 2018 and a complaint letter on 2 November 2018. However, it found those communications were not qualifying disclosures because they were directed to the claimant's own complaints about treatment by Mr Rickwood and Mr Strong, rather than to any wider public interest. The tribunal placed weight on the fact that the 30 October statement did not mention that two portable toilets had fallen from the claimant's trailer on 19 October 2018, which it regarded as a serious omission inconsistent with a genuine health and safety disclosure.

The tribunal also found that the claimant's 2 November 2018 complaint letter focused on his personal grievance and his wish to remain employed, rather than on protecting others or reporting wider wrongdoing. It therefore held that he had not, at any relevant time, made a protected disclosure. On that basis, the automatic unfair dismissal claim failed. The tribunal added that, even if disclosures had been made, it accepted Mr Latta's evidence that the dismissal decision was driven by the claimant's failure to disclose promptly what had happened when the portable toilets fell from the trailer and by his lack of openness when asked about that incident.

The separate detriment complaint based on alleged threats and intimidation in 2019 also failed. The tribunal found that the alleged encounter on 27 February 2019, or alternatively 1 March 2019 as recorded elsewhere, was not proved to the required standard. It also held that, even on the claimant's account, the alleged conduct was outside working time and not shown to have been done in the course of the alleged perpetrators' employment, so s.47B was not made out.