G C v Respondent — 2021

G C worked for the respondent and its predecessor from 2007 as a Senior Lifestyle Support Worker. After maternity leave she moved to Didcot House. The tribunal found that she had told management that she would not be comfortable working with service users with paedophilic tendencies. On 25 June 2016 she was told that D had restrictions linked to his release from prison for sexual assault on a minor, she worked one shift, and then went off sick on 8 July 2016 with PTSD, depression and anxiety.

The tribunal found that the respondent then failed to manage the sickness absence in line with its own policy. It delayed the stage 1 process, had very little contact, did not involve occupational health or EAP promptly, and repeatedly sent correspondence to the wrong address. When the claimant was dismissed on medical grounds on 26 June 2018, after occupational health had said she was unfit to return for another six months, the tribunal held that the dismissal was unfair under s.98 ERA 1996.

The tribunal also upheld the discrimination arising from disability claim under s.15 Equality Act 2010. It accepted a legitimate aim of efficient running of the business, but held the dismissal was not a proportionate means of achieving that aim because the respondent's own conduct had contributed to the claimant's deterioration and it had not given proper weight to the delayed and incomplete support available to assist her recovery. The reasonable-adjustments complaint failed because the tribunal did not find a PCP requiring a return only to her old role, and the sick pay reinstatement complaint failed because the delay to the final meeting was by agreement rather than employer fault. The holiday pay claim succeeded for 20 days because the respondent had not shown that the claimant had been given sufficient information and opportunity to take annual leave during sick leave, applying Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaften eV v Shimizu. A remedy hearing was listed for 27 January 2022.