Mr Daniel Morris v Tokheim Solutions UK Limited — 2020

Mr Morris was employed as a Field Service Technician from 31 March 2014. His work was recorded through a tablet that also captured GPS information, and in October 2018 he received a written warning for unauthorised absence, extended lunch breaks and holiday process issues. In January and early March 2019 the respondent compared his tablet entries with GPS data and customer records and identified discrepancies on 31 December 2018, 17, 25, 26 and 27 February 2019, and 4 March 2019. The respondent treated this as abuse of the recording procedures and failing to devote all working time to the business, held a disciplinary hearing on 20 March 2019, and summarily dismissed him. His appeal was heard on 23 April 2019 and was rejected on 26 April 2019.

The tribunal applied section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Burchell test and the band of reasonable responses approach, and also referred to Sainsbury's plc v Hitt and Polkey v A E Dayton Services Limited. It accepted the evidence of Mr Davidson, Mr Watts and Mr Davies as credible and reliable, and found that the respondent genuinely believed the claimant had committed the misconduct alleged. It held that there were reasonable grounds for that belief from the investigation pack, and that the investigation was reasonable in the circumstances, including the decision to obtain GPS data and not to tell the claimant in advance that he was under investigation for timekeeping.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's procedural criticisms about short notice, the inability initially to open the attachments, the involvement of Mr Knowles, the form of the minutes, the dismissal letter being issued in Maria Bell's name, and the absence of suspension. It found that some degree of give and take was common in the role, and that if the complaint had been only about early finishes, late starts or long lunches, summary dismissal would not have been justified. What changed the position was the finding that the claimant had entered inaccurate information on his tablet and abused the recording procedures, which the tribunal said went to the heart of the way the respondent managed its business and reported service-level compliance. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore dismissed. The notice pay claim also failed because the disciplinary policy reserved summary dismissal for gross misconduct and the tribunal treated deliberate falsification of records as falling within that category. The holiday pay claim failed because the claimant had already taken his full entitlement before dismissal.