Mr Deepak Subbakrishna v Royal Mail Group Limited — 2024

The tribunal found that the respondent had shown a conduct reason for dismissal, namely its belief that the claimant had committed gross misconduct through violent and abusive behaviour towards another employee. However, the tribunal found that the disciplinary process fell outside the range of reasonable responses in several respects, including the dismissing manager's involvement in part of the investigation, the failure properly to compare the credibility of the claimant and the other employee, the absence of a proper investigation report or case-to-answer analysis, and the failure to reinterview a key witness after recognising that his evidence was vague.

The tribunal found that the evidence relied on by the respondent was a wholly insufficient basis for dismissal and that the respondent did not have reasonable grounds for its belief in the claimant's guilt. The appeal did not cure the defects; the tribunal found that the appeal manager accepted evidence from other witnesses over the claimant without satisfactory explanation and that her approach to the evidence was unfair. The tribunal also found that, had a fair investigation been conducted, the respondent would not have dismissed the claimant, and that the claimant had not contributed to his dismissal by culpable conduct.

The direct race discrimination claim failed. The tribunal found that the named comparators were not in sufficiently similar circumstances and that the claimant had not shown facts from which it could conclude that a hypothetical comparator of a different race would have been treated differently or that race played any part in the treatment. The unauthorised deductions claim also failed because the recognition payment excluded employees subject to procedures that could lead to dismissal, so the claimant was not entitled to the payment.