Case 8000543/2024 · Employment Tribunal
E.T. Z (WR) EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND)5 Case No: 8000543/2024 Held at Aberdeen on and September 202410 Employment Judge N M Hosie Miss Alison Bowden
Miss Alison Bowden was employed as a PCV driver from 17 September 2018 until dismissal with effect from 5 January 2024. The respondent relied on conduct, following a trade union grievance alleging bullying and harassing behaviour towards a colleague, Michael Duncan. The tribunal noted that she had previously been dismissed on 1 March 2023 but was reinstated on appeal and given a final written warning on 6 March 2023. The tribunal did not reopen the final warning and found no basis to say it had been issued in bad faith, for an oblique motive, or in a manifestly inappropriate way.
The tribunal accepted that the respondent believed the claimant had committed misconduct, but it found the dismissal procedurally unfair because she was not given copies of the witness statements or the notes of the investigation meetings before the disciplinary process concluded. That meant she was not afforded a proper opportunity to answer the specific allegations. The tribunal referred to the Burchell approach and the ACAS Code requirement to inform the employee of the problem, and held that the final limb of a reasonable investigation had not been satisfied. It also accepted the respondent's concession that, if the documents had not been provided, the dismissal would be procedurally unfair.
On compensation, the tribunal applied Polkey and found it extremely likely that Miss Bowden would still have been dismissed had a fair process been followed, assessing only a 10 per cent chance that the outcome would have been different. It therefore said the compensatory award should be reduced by 90 per cent. It also found contributory fault because she did not raise the document issue during the process and said she was satisfied with it, so it reduced both the compensatory award and the basic award by a further 25 per cent. The tribunal said the basic award would be 7.5 weeks' pay, reduced by 25 per cent, but it did not quantify the monetary award and directed the parties to try to agree compensation or, failing that, proceed to a remedy hearing. The separate claim about accompaniment at hearings was dismissed as without foundation.
| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | Dismissal admitted; tribunal found it procedurally unfair because the claimant was not provided with the witness statements and notes before the investigation, disciplinary and appeal stages. Remedy was not quantified in the judgment and was left to agreement or a remedy hearing. | Upheld | — | — |
| Other | Claim that the respondent failed to allow the claimant to be accompanied at various hearings was described as without foundation and was dismissed. | Dismissed | — | — |
The official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
Named in this case and want it removed? Submit a takedown request. The page will be withdrawn on receipt and the editor will follow up within five working days.