Unfair Dismissal
The claimant in the employment tribunal was dismissed because he was found to have made a threat to a colleague to the effect that he had a gun with her name on it. That allegation was, in the internal process, denied by the claimant, but supported by the evidence of others.
The manager who heard the claimant’s appeal against dismissal had also, at an earlier stage, suspended the claimant, and authorised the matter being progressed by way of disciplinary charges. He had also had a conversation with the person who the claimant was alleged to have threatened, in which he had advised that she should consider making a report to the police. The tribunal concluded that these features did not mean that his being the manager who later heard the claimant’s appeal rendered the dismissal unfair. The tribunal had carefully considered these issues and did not err in law in reaching that conclusion.
The tribunal also did not err in law, by failing to filing the dismissal unfair, on the basis that the respondent had wrongly formed the view that the claimant owned, or had owned, a gun, when there was no evidence before the respondent to support such a conclusion. It was not surprising that, in the internal process, the claimant had been asked questions about that, because an affirmative answer might have been thought to lend some support to the allegation that he had made a threat. But that was not a necessary finding in order to make out the charge. The tribunal also properly found that the decision to dismiss was based on the belief that he had made a threat, as charged, and despite his denial, not on the belief that he actually did own, or had owned, a gun. The tribunal properly found that it was fair to dismiss him for making such a threat, and that the dismissal was otherwise in all the circumstances of the case a fair one.
Citations:
[2022] EAT 110
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 16 September 2022; Ref: scu.680699