Ms M Sharp, Counsel For the v Mr S Brown, Director and Third Respondent — 2022

Ms Yvette Morgan had worked for Lactodorum Contracts Ltd since 4 November 2003 and was dismissed on 9 July 2020. The tribunal accepted that she met Mr Bradshaw of Azets on 19 May 2020 and later spoke with Stephen Brown the same day, but it found that the matters she relayed were not disclosures made in the public interest. Although she had genuine concerns and stress about cash handling, bookkeeping practices, HMRC scrutiny and the impact on her own position, the tribunal concluded that her concern was primarily her own and, to a lesser extent, the private interests of the Respondents. Her whistleblowing complaints under s.47B and s.103A ERA 1996 were therefore dismissed.

The tribunal upheld the ordinary unfair dismissal claim. It found that the First Respondent genuinely believed the claimant had engaged in misconduct, but that belief was not supported by reasonable grounds. In particular, the tribunal found that Stephen Brown had authorised the laptop purchase, that the Respondents had long allowed the claimant to use the First Respondent's systems and to work within an informal arrangement with no contract, written particulars, job description or written policies, and that the employer's concerns were not properly investigated before dismissal. The tribunal said the process fell far short of what would reasonably have been expected, including because there was no investigatory meeting, no disciplinary meeting, no written evidence to the claimant, and no appeal process. It found the dismissal patently unfair and declined to make a Polkey reduction because no sensible prediction could be made on the material before it.

The wrongful dismissal claim also succeeded because the First Respondent did not establish a contractual basis for summary dismissal without notice. On the wages claim, the tribunal declared an unlawful deduction of £835 and ordered repayment of that sum. It found that the laptop had cost £720 inclusive of VAT and that the additional £115 was unexplained, but the deduction was still unlawful because the laptop had been authorised and there was no written contractual basis for the deduction. The First Respondent's counterclaim for breach of contract failed entirely: the tribunal rejected the challenges to the £400 payments, the laptop, mammograms, other medical expenses, Plumbco transactions, lunches, and miscellaneous items, and dismissed the claim for £12,452.83. A remedy hearing for the unfair dismissal claim was listed separately.