Mr David Raw v Force Contracting Services Ltd — 2025

This was an application for interim relief under sections 128 to 129 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 arising from a claim of automatic unfair dismissal under section 103A for protected disclosures. The tribunal applied the interim-relief test as a requirement to show a 'pretty good chance' of success, which it treated as a higher threshold than the ordinary balance of probabilities, and decided the application on the written material only, without oral evidence.

The tribunal considered five alleged disclosures. It treated the grievance sent on 26 February 2025 about feeling physically threatened by Gareth Tennyson and unsafe returning to work as Alleged Disclosure 1, and found it had a pretty good chance of amounting to a protected disclosure, including on public-interest and health-and-safety grounds. It also treated the comments made at the 3 March 2025 meeting as Alleged Disclosure 2 and the fraud-related statements made at and after that meeting as Alleged Disclosure 3, and found those also had a pretty good chance of being protected disclosures.

For Alleged Disclosures 1 to 3, the tribunal nevertheless held that the Claimant had not shown a pretty good chance of proving causation for interim relief purposes. It accepted the Respondent's case that the investigation into the 11 February 2025 incident began on 12 February 2025, before the grievance of 26 February 2025, and that the disciplinary process was already underway by the time of the later disclosures. On that basis, the tribunal was not persuaded that those disclosures were likely to be shown to be the reason or principal reason for dismissal.

The tribunal held that Alleged Disclosure 4, the 5 March 2025 email alleging fraud, money laundering, bribery and corruption while declining to provide details, was not a protected disclosure because it was an allegation rather than a disclosure of information. Alleged Disclosure 5, a more specific email of 6 March 2025, was not part of the pleaded claim and was only considered in the alternative; even then, the tribunal said causation was not shown because the investigation and dismissal process had already been set in motion. Overall, it concluded that while some alleged disclosures might be protected disclosures individually or cumulatively, it was not likely that they were the reason or principal reason for dismissal, so the interim relief application was refused.