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United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Afzal v London Borough Of Lambeth [1991] UKEAT 570_90_2810 (28 October 1991)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1991/570_90_2810.html
Cite as: [1991] UKEAT 570_90_2810
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EAT/599/90
INTERNAL
At the Tribunal
Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE WOOD MC (P)
MR J A SCOULLER
MR S M SPRINGER MBE
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
PRELIMINARY HEARING
Revised
APPEARANCES
For the Appellant Appellant in person
MR JUSTICE WOOD (PRESIDENT): This is an Appeal by way of a Preliminary Hearing by Mr Afzal from a decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting in London South under the Chairmanship of the Learned Regional Chairman Mr Oliver Lodge who on 13 and 14 September 1990 unanimously dismissed his allegation that he had been unfairly dismissed by the London Borough of Lambeth.
The Applicant, prior to being employed by the borough, had been employed by a grant aided body, The Self-Employed Business Enterprise Project which was under the aegis of the Lambeth Council for Community Relations. There came a time when that ran into financial difficulties. Its operation ceased and was taken over by the borough itself. That was in April 1987 so from that time the Applicant became employed by the borough but in fact he did not attend at his place of employment because he was so instructed by his trade union NALGO. He in fact attended, he tells us, from July 1987.
The arrangement made by the borough from April 1987 onwards was that the Applicant came within what was termed the "Enterprise Group" of the borough, part of the directorate of Town Planning and Economic Development. He reported initially to Mr Lewis, the Assistant Director who was one of the deputies of Mr Duffield, the Director. The situation changed from time to time but from April 1989 Mr Gregory Cohn took up the duties of manager or co-ordinator of the Enterprise Group and from that time he was the Applicant's Line Manager.
Before the project had ceased to be of effect from April 1987 there had been some problems between the Applicant and Mr Cohn and perhaps one of the other members of the staff. Complaints were made about the quality of the Applicant's work. The Applicant wished that issue to continue after he had become employed by the borough itself and the borough through its personnel officers, were not prepared to look upon that as being something which the borough could handle. It had been an issue raised when he was being employed by some other entity.
The problems arising out of those matters ran on. The Learned Chairman in the Decision of the Tribunal, which was unanimous, covers the whole history in the greatest detail and cites at length from the correspondence that was passing between the Applicant and various members of the borough. The Applicant did not welcome the appointment of Mr Cohn and made that quite clear. He was asked to attend a proposed meeting in 1989. He failed to do so and he was written to. Misconduct was alleged, a disciplinary hearing took place on 28 July, the charges were found against him, and he was given a formal written warning.
He appealed that matter. Mr Duffield refused to hear the Appeal because he alleged that the Applicant did not intend to co-operate with his Line Manager. The Tribunal were critical of that refusal, taking the view that it was a breach of the recognised procedures. Problems then arose over the Applicant's burning of joss-sticks in his office. He was told to cease, he refused, he also failed to attend at meetings when directed so to do and on 11 December 1989 there was a further disciplinary hearing. The actual hearing eventually took place during two days in 1990 and the Applicant was represented by Mr Rudy Narayan of Counsel.
The disciplinary panel found certain charges proved and recommended dismissal. That was communicated to the Applicant who was dismissed.
The letter of dismissal was sent to his home address. The Tribunal accepted his evidence that he was at the time away from home, and did not receive the letter until his return on 10 April 1990. The Tribunal therefore found that that was the effective date of termination. Having found that, the Tribunal had to look at the reason and the reason was a failure to co-operate with the instructions of his Line Manager. The Tribunal applied the appropriate test and found that there was a genuine belief held on reasonable grounds after sufficient investigation that that was so. The next aspect of the problem which had to be examined was whether the dismissal was the appropriate sanction and the Tribunal found that it was. There was an application for review. It was refused. There is an appeal also against that refusal so we have the two matters before us.
Mr Afzal prepared a careful Notice of Appeal numbering his comments to correspond with the paragraphs in the decision. He informed us today that he appealed because he did not want the history of events as set out in the Decision to go unchallenged and he also raised a procedural matter about being refused permission to amend his Originating Application. That was essentially a matter of discretion and we can find no error in that. So far as the history of events is concerned, Mr Azfal raises a number of matters in that Notice of Appeal and we have read it with care. They are all issues of fact. The Hearing before the Industrial Tribunal extended over two days and the whole matter was quite clearly exhaustively examined by the Tribunal. As we have pointed out to Mr Azfal our function is simply to detect, if there is one, a flaw in the Decision, namely an error of law. We have examined this documentation with care and we are quite unable to find an error of law in the way this matter was approached and in the decision which was reached. The facts were all there. The facts were clearly found and there is no error in the direction of law given to itself by the Industrial Tribunal. It follows therefore that these two Appeals must be dismissed at this juncture.