Member Mr I Ashraf Tribunal Member Ms M McAllister Mr A Fraser v Represented by: Ms S Mechan - Lay Representative Wesleyan Financial Services Limited and 1 other — 2025

The claimant worked as a Specialist Financial Adviser from 28 April 2003 and had almost 23 years' service when dismissed on 30 May 2024. He had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression in 2021, took prescribed medication, and returned to full-time work in January 2022. The claim arose after a reward and recognition event in Birmingham on 2 May 2024, where the claimant drank heavily and later no longer recalled the events of the evening. An allegation of inappropriate touching was made by Ms A and other witnesses, and Ms Erbe carried out the investigation.

On the Equality Act claims, the tribunal accepted that depression and anxiety could amount to a mental impairment, but it found no evidence that the claimant's condition had a substantial effect on day-to-day activities during the material period of 2 May to 25 July 2024. It noted that he continued to take medication, but there was no evidence of what effect he would have without it, and no evidence that he was experiencing substantial day-to-day difficulty at that time. The tribunal therefore held that he had not proved that he was disabled within s.6 Equality Act 2010, and dismissed the claims for discrimination arising from a disability, harassment and victimisation against both respondents.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal accepted that misconduct was a potentially fair reason under s.98 ERA 1996 and that Mr Brown and Ms Oldstein genuinely believed Ms A's allegation. However, it found that Ms Erbe's investigation was flawed because she did not investigate the alcohol consumed by Ms A or the witnesses, did not properly pursue the claimant's explanation that medication and alcohol may have affected his memory, and treated his apology letter as an admission even though he had not been told the detail of the allegation when he wrote it. The tribunal also held that the claimant was not given the details of the allegation until the second interview and that telling him the matter was confidential was unfair in an investigation context.

The tribunal further found that the disciplinary and appeal stages did not cure those defects. Mr Brown relied on the investigation report without further scrutiny, and Ms Oldstein re-interviewed witnesses but did not address the reliability issues arising from alcohol consumption or the fact that the apology had been written without full knowledge of the allegation. The tribunal concluded that the overall process was procedurally unfair and that the dismissal was unfair. It directed the parties to attend a one-day hearing on Polkey, contribution and remedy; no award was fixed in this judgment.