Mr C Murray (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2021

Mr S Page, a gas service engineer, was dismissed by Cathedral Controls Limited on 15 April 2019 after an investigation into work on a school boiler. The tribunal recorded that he had received a final written warning in September 2018 after an earlier gas-related concern, and that the April 2019 dismissal meeting was called with no advance written notice, no written particulars of the allegation, and no copies of the supporting evidence.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal accepted that Mr Giles honestly believed the claimant had carried out unsafe work, had reasonable grounds for that belief, and had carried out as much investigation as was reasonable for the purposes of the Burchell test. It nevertheless held that dismissal was outside the range of reasonable responses under s.98(4) ERA 1996 because the claimant was not told in advance what case he had to answer, was not given the evidence, and was not given a proper opportunity to respond or consider accompaniment. The appeal did not cure those defects.

On remedy, the tribunal found that, if a fair procedure had been followed, dismissal would probably still have occurred within four weeks because the respondent would not have accepted an alternative explanation for the missing seal and the resulting unsafe boiler condition. It therefore limited loss to four weeks, calculated losses at £2,244.24, applied a 10% uplift for unreasonable non-compliance with the Acas Code under s.207A TULRCA 1992, and then reduced both compensatory and basic awards by 50% for contributory conduct, producing a compensatory award of £1,234.33, a basic award of £1,968.75 and a total of £3,203.08. The wrongful dismissal claim failed because the tribunal found the omission to fit the seal left the boiler unsafe with high carbon monoxide levels and was sufficiently serious, in context, to justify summary dismissal.