Mr Ellis (lay person and friend) For the v Respondent — 2025

The claimant brought a single complaint of automatically unfair dismissal under section 103A ERA 1996, together with an application for interim relief. The tribunal first dealt with case management issues, including that the claim had been rejected against four other named respondents and that OCS Security Ltd was the sole respondent. It also noted that the case had been heard by video to accommodate the claimant’s stated PTSD and that a related Watford claim, case number 3304623/2025, would be transferred and consolidated in London Central.

Applying the interim relief authorities, the tribunal set out that the claimant had to show a higher threshold than a mere reasonable prospect of success, describing the test as whether he had a “pretty good chance” of succeeding and noting that all relevant elements of the complaint had to be considered. It referred to Taplin v C Shippam Ltd, Ministry of Justice v Sarfaz, Dandpat v University of Bath, Al Qasimi v Robinson, Parsons v Airplus International Ltd and Hancock v Ter-Berg, and also summarised the substantive whistleblowing requirements under section 43B ERA and the section 103A causation requirement that the protected disclosure be the sole or principal reason for dismissal.

On the facts, the claimant relied on an email of 6 March 2025 said to be a protected disclosure concerning an incident on the night of 26/27 January 2025 when he said he had been assaulted and the respondent had breached health and safety law. The respondent’s evidence, including contemporaneous investigation and disciplinary documents and a draft statement from Mr Paul Carden, was that the claimant had been engaged in unauthorised activity, that the assault occurred on Robert Street rather than on his patrol route, that he had been on Robert Street on other occasions, and that he had changed his account during the investigation and disciplinary process. The tribunal considered those documents to indicate substantial reasons for believing the claimant had committed gross misconduct and that this was the reason for dismissal.

The tribunal found the claimant had not put forward a rational basis for saying that the dismissal decision was influenced by the alleged protected disclosure, and said that temporal proximity alone was not enough. It concluded that the claimant was a long way from showing a pretty good chance of establishing that his dismissal was principally because of making a protected disclosure. It also said that, if the respondent’s version was correct, the claimant might not be able to show a reasonable belief that his email tended to show a breach of legal obligation or danger to health and safety, so it was not possible to say he had a pretty good chance of proving that he made a protected disclosure. The application for interim relief was therefore refused. The tribunal also addressed the respondent’s argument on section 128(3) ERA, held that the hearing had still been listed as soon as practicable in light of tribunal administration constraints, and found that it retained jurisdiction to hear the application.