Mr Mellis (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2021

The claimant was employed by Formula One Autocentres from November 2016 and became a Regional Manager in 2018. In March 2019 he raised concerns that an ex-area manager had been paying staff more than they were owed in bonus and fuel and taking a cut of the money. The tribunal held that his 15 March email and the later discussion with Mr Keeley amounted to a protected disclosure: they contained sufficient factual content and specificity, the claimant reasonably believed they tended to show a criminal offence or deliberate concealment, and they were made to the employer in the public interest.

The disciplinary process arose after the respondent discovered the claimant’s Range Rover and then a Jaguar at the Gloucester branch. The tribunal found there was no written policy clearly prohibiting area managers from working on their own vehicles in the way the respondent suggested, and that Mr Keeley had already formed a view that the claimant was on his "last legs" and would be demoted. The tribunal also accepted evidence of Mr Brooks’s 29 March call, which indicated that the outcome was being anticipated in advance. At the 1 April 2019 disciplinary meeting, Mr Keeley said he did not want to dismiss the claimant but that his outcome was to dismiss him and demote him back to branch manager if he wanted to stay. The tribunal held that the claimant was expressly dismissed, and in any event that the demotion with a pay reduction of more than £11,000, loss of car and loss of status would itself have amounted to dismissal.

On fairness, the tribunal found the respondent had a conduct reason within s98(2)(b) ERA 1996, but it did not act reasonably under s98(4) and Burchell. There was no meaningful investigation, no independent decision-maker, no proper disclosure of documents before the hearing, and the appeal was not an independent rehearing. The tribunal found the process was pre-determined and that the respondent went into it with a fixed view that the claimant had breached a policy it had not properly established or applied.

The automatic unfair dismissal claim under s103A ERA 1996 failed because the tribunal found the dismissal was driven by the Jaguar incident and pre-existing performance concerns, not by the protected disclosure. The detriment claim under s47B ERA 1996 also failed on the same basis: the tribunal found the protected disclosure did not materially influence the suspension, disciplinary proceedings, appeal, or the post-dismissal threats. Those threats were found to have occurred, but they were linked to the claimant’s covert recordings and were not treated as conduct for which the respondent was vicariously liable. The case was liability only and no remedy was assessed in this judgment.