Marie Townrow v Bright Stars Nursery Limited — 2026

Marie Townrow was employed by Bright Stars Nursery Group Limited as an Area Manager from 9 May 2023 and was dismissed at the end of her probationary period, with notice given on 24 October 2023. The Tribunal adjudicated complaints of direct sex discrimination, discrimination arising from disability, and failure to make reasonable adjustments. In its time-limit analysis, it found the allegations to be closely related continuing conduct connected with the probationary period and dismissal.

The direct sex discrimination complaint was dismissed. Although the Tribunal found that the Respondent failed to provide meaningful supervision or set improvement plans or targets, it concluded that a hypothetical male Area Manager in materially identical circumstances would have received the same emails, unannounced visits, supervision, performance management and dismissal. It found that Mr Booty's communication and management style was applied to male and female employees and that the Claimant's sex had no influence on the treatment or the decision to dismiss her. The dismissal was based on the Respondent's assessment that the nurseries had not achieved the required operational, occupancy and financial improvements.

The discrimination arising from disability complaint was dismissed. The Tribunal found that the Claimant's fibromyalgia made manual gardening work harder and caused pain and fatigue, but the Respondent required her to ensure that gardening work was completed rather than requiring her personally to perform it. She could arrange for a gardener, nursery manager or member of staff to do the work and chose to do it herself after an arranged gardener did not attend. The requirement arose from the responsibilities of the Area Manager role, not because of something arising from her disability, so the necessary causal connection under section 15 was absent. The Tribunal also found that the Respondent had constructive knowledge of her disability from her health declaration dated 5 May 2023, while noting that no legitimate aim had been pleaded for justification.

The reasonable-adjustments complaint was also dismissed. The Tribunal accepted a PCP requiring an Area Manager to perform gardening duties if nobody else was available and found that it placed the Claimant at a substantial disadvantage because of her fibromyalgia. It nevertheless found that the Respondent neither knew nor could reasonably have been expected to know of that particular disadvantage: the Claimant's health declaration said that fibromyalgia did not affect her work, and she did not tell management that manual gardening would cause difficulty. A risk assessment would not itself have avoided the disadvantage, while the proposed step of sourcing somebody else was inconsistent with a PCP arising only when nobody else was available; the Tribunal also found that the Respondent already permitted others to perform the work.