Ms J Cameron v , Solicitor Hutchison Technologies Limited — 2026

Ms Cameron worked for Hutchison Technologies Limited as a Service & Support Administrator from 20 January to 11 June 2025. Her contract provided for two office days and three home-working days each week. Her responsibilities included checking engineers' timesheets and calculating holiday pay. The Tribunal accepted that, at the end of May or beginning of June 2025, she told Mr Malone that incorrect salary information was causing holiday pay to be undercalculated for the engineers as a group.

The Tribunal found that the holiday-pay disclosure conveyed information which, in Ms Cameron's reasonable belief, tended to show a failure to comply with the legal obligation to pay the correct holiday pay under the Working Time Regulations 1998. Applying the public-interest factors identified in Chesterton Global Limited t/a Chestertons v Nurmohamed, it found that she reasonably believed the disclosure was in the public interest because it concerned a group of engineers. Her pension disclosure concerned only her own pension position and did not satisfy the public-interest requirement. The alleged disclosure about engineers' rest breaks was not relied upon as relevant to the June 2025 decisions.

On 10 June 2025, Mr Malone required Ms Cameron to work in the office five days each week. The Tribunal found that withdrawing the hybrid-working arrangement was a detriment, noting that she valued that arrangement and that it formed part of her contract. It rejected the respondent's explanation that the change resulted from performance errors because the alleged errors and investigation were unsupported by documentary evidence and Mr James had reported no performance concerns. As the protected holiday-pay disclosure had been made shortly beforehand and the respondent did not provide a satisfactory explanation for the treatment, the section 47B detriment claim was upheld.

Ms Cameron was dismissed on 11 June 2025. The Tribunal rejected the respondent's stated reasons of poor performance and failure to attend the office, finding inconsistencies in its evidence about line management, the office-attendance instruction, performance concerns and responsibility for the dismissal. In light of those inconsistencies, the timing of the holiday-pay disclosure, and Mr Malone's comments at the meeting on 10 June, the Tribunal found on the balance of probabilities that the protected disclosure was the principal reason for dismissal. The automatic unfair-dismissal claim under section 103A was therefore upheld.

The judgment determined liability only. It recorded that a further hearing would be required to determine remedy, so no monetary award or remedy breakdown was made in this judgment.