In person For the v Respondent — 2021

The tribunal found that the claimant was an employee of Sporting Wholesale Limited and that, on 18 March 2019, he told Ms Cox at the Hemel Hempstead premises, "I didn't realise you had tits till today." It preferred Ms Cox's evidence over the claimant's account of the incident and found that the earlier discussion about the word "kurwa" had occurred separately. The tribunal held that the remark was a breach of the implied term of trust and confidence and amounted to gross misconduct.

The tribunal also found that the claimant had made protected disclosures about suspected drug use by employees, including alleged cannabis use at work. It accepted that those disclosures could amount to protected disclosures under section 43B ERA 1996 because the claimant reasonably believed that someone was smoking cannabis and that such conduct could involve criminality, a breach of trust and confidence, and health and safety risks. However, it found that the principal reason for dismissal was the claimant's conduct toward Ms Cox, not the disclosures, so the automatic unfair dismissal case under section 103A did not succeed.

The unfair dismissal claim under section 98 succeeded because the respondent accepted that it had not followed a fair procedure before dismissing the claimant. The tribunal found that, had a fair procedure been followed, the claimant would still have been dismissed a week later for the same conduct, so the compensatory award was limited to one week's net pay of £359.43. It made no basic award because of the claimant's conduct.

The section 47B detriment claims were dismissed. The tribunal found that one alleged detriment attributed to Mr Adam Eliaz was not done on behalf of the respondent, that remarks attributed to Mr Audi Eliaz were made because he genuinely thought the claimant had become obsessed with the drug allegations rather than because of the disclosures, and that the complaint about Mr Eddy Eliaz failing to act on the allegations was not made out on the evidence. The tribunal also held that the detriment claims were brought outside the primary time limit and that no evidence was provided to show that it had not been reasonably practicable to present them in time.