In person For the v Mr T Russell, Solicitor — 2024

This was a hearing on the claimant's application for interim relief under s.128 Employment Rights Act 1996. Ms Catherine Stamper had been employed by Merchant Seamans War Memorial Society t/a Care Ashore as Chief Executive Officer from 16 November 2020 until her summary dismissal for gross misconduct on 11 December 2023. The claimant said she had accessed the mailbox of a departed trustee through the respondent's IT provider, found material sent from the trustee's work email to a private email account, and raised concerns that this involved personal data and a possible GDPR breach. She said she brought the issue to the trustees in writing on 4 October 2023 and in a meeting with the interim chair on 6 October 2023.

The tribunal applied the interim relief test by asking whether it was likely that the final tribunal would find that the dismissal was for the making of protected disclosures. It referred to s.103A, s.128, s.129 and s.130 ERA 1996 and the authorities on interim relief, including London City Airport v Chacko, Taplin v C Shippam Limited, Ministry of Justice v Scarfaz and Al Qasiri v Robinson. The judge recorded that the hearing was a summary assessment on untested evidence and said that the reasonableness of the respondent's procedures was not relevant to the application.

On the information before the tribunal, it was not satisfied that the claimant had shown a likely case that she had made protected disclosures or that her dismissal was because of them. The judge said it was not clear that the material identified amounted to a qualifying disclosure under the Employment Rights Act 1996, or what type of qualifying disclosure was said to have been made. If the trustees regularly sent material from work accounts to private accounts for home working, the tribunal was not satisfied that the claimant was likely to establish a breach of legal obligation or vicarious liability on the respondent's part. Even if protected disclosures were established, the tribunal was not satisfied that the claimant was likely to show that the sole or principal reason for dismissal was those disclosures, given the evidence about prior trustee and HR discussions and Mr Usher's account that dismissal was for unauthorised access to the departed trustee's email account.

The application for interim relief was therefore refused and no order was made. The tribunal stated that this was not a final determination of the whistleblowing claim and that the claimant might still succeed at the final hearing, but on the evidence then available she had not shown the necessary likelihood of success.