Mr P Mckenna, representative For the v Ms J Williams, solicitor — 2021

The claimant was employed as the manager of the respondent’s Heathrow office and was dismissed on 25 September 2019 after disciplinary allegations including excessive personal internet usage, unauthorised absence, failure to follow company procedures, disrespect of senior managers, failure to communicate properly with his manager, and failure to follow client SOPs and maintain service levels. The tribunal recorded that the claimant accepted the reason for dismissal was conduct and did not pursue any complaint about the procedure followed in dismissing him.

The respondent’s staff handbook allowed only incidental personal internet use, required it to be minimal and substantially outside normal working hours, and stated that misuse or excessive use would be dealt with under the disciplinary procedure. The tribunal also noted that the claimant had previously been warned in May 2018 about excessive non-work internet use, and later found that in 2019 the respondent had reasonable grounds to conclude he was not carrying out required work, including tasks connected with the dashboard referred to in the 1 August 2019 email.

Mrs Hutchinson dismissed the claimant for gross misconduct for excessive internet use and not following company procedures. The tribunal found that the real reason for dismissal was excessive internet use during working hours for non-work purposes, not the particular sites accessed. It held that the claimant, given his seniority and management role, knew or should have known that spending significant time on the internet during working hours could lead to dismissal, especially where work remained outstanding. The tribunal also treated the deletion of internet history from the respondent’s mobile phone as evidence of awareness of fault.

Applying section 98(4) ERA 1996 and the range of reasonable responses test, the tribunal concluded that the dismissal was not outside the range of reasonable responses of a reasonable employer. It therefore dismissed the unfair dismissal claim and recorded that no remedy arose.