The London Central Employment Tribunal has found that a groundsman at a Premier League Football Club was unfairly dismissed when the club sacked him with immediate effect and without investigation.
The tribunal heard how in 2021 the employee began a period of sick leave citing ‘stress at work’. In October 2021, he submitted a grievance against his manager alleging that at the works Christmas party in 2019 he had spiked his drinks, let the tyres on his car down, ‘pursued him down the training ground’ and subsequently ‘bullied’ him over the phone.
The club found that the employee had been pushed by his manager at the party, but the other allegations were not upheld. The employee submitted an appeal and indicated he wanted his manager dismissed. A series of anonymous, abusive and threatening emails alleging workplace bullying and harassment were then sent to hundreds of recipients.
The employee was subsequently sacked by the club with immediate effect and without investigation on grounds of gross misconduct and loss of trust and confidence in respect of the employer’s belief that he had sent the anonymous emails. He denied sending them, but his subsequent appeal was rejected at a hearing in which he was not invited to attend, the outcome letter stating that the same spelling mistakes which appeared in complaints he had raised with the club appeared in the anonymous emails, including misspellings of the word “lying” as “lieng” and “liar” as “lier”.
The tribunal found that the club did not conduct a fair disciplinary process, and the claim of unfair dismissal succeeded. However, the Employment Judge further found that the employee had engaged in “serious culpable conduct which caused his dismissal, namely, sending the anonymous emails” and was satisfied that he would have been dismissed in any event if the respondent had applied a fair procedure. For those reasons, his compensation was reduced to zero.
James Roddy, Employment Tribunal & Employment Law Consultant at EML, comments:
“It is noteworthy that although the Respondent didn’t execute a fundamentally fair disciplinary process, they subsequently made significant efforts to substantiate the Claimant’s guilt regarding the sending of the anonymous emails, including engaging a third-party IT specialist who produced a compelling report as to the Claimant’s IT abilities. Information which only comes to light after a dismissal will not be taken into account in determining whether that dismissal was fair. However, the Tribunal does have the discretion to take it into account in its considerations of what compensation is just and equitable in the circumstances. These actions assisted the club, despite the belated timing of the investigations, in securing a judgment from the Employment Tribunal that there was a 100% probability that had a fair procedure been followed, the Claimant would still have been dismissed, and that he had engaged in serious culpable behaviour and therefore should not be awarded any compensation, a very rare finding for a Tribunal to make”.
EML not only supplies commercially minded employment law advice and bespoke HR services, we also provide a comprehensive employment tribunal representation service to our clients. Our experienced consultants have defended thousands of claims over the years, ranging from straightforward unfair dismissals to complex discrimination cases. If you have any pending tribunal claims or would like to discuss any of the issues raised in this article, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01942 727200 or email enquiries@employeemanagement.co.uk.
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