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United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Letford v Derbyshire County Council [1993] UKEAT 299_91_0405 (4 May 1993)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1993/299_91_0405.html
Cite as: [1993] UKEAT 299_91_405, [1993] UKEAT 299_91_0405
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At the Tribunal
HIS HONOUR JUDGE N HAGUE QC
MR T BATHO
MRS E HART
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
PRELIMINARY HEARING
Revised
APPEARANCES
For the Appellant IN PERSON
JUDGE HAGUE QC: This is a Preliminary Hearing of an appeal brought by the Appellant Mr Oslen Letford against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal which was entered in the Register on 17 April 1991.
The background to the matter is that Mr Letford was employed by the Derbyshire County Council who were the Respondents to the application before the Industrial Tribunal. Mr Letford had for several years been employed by the County Council as a youth worker, at what was originally called the Pear Tree Coffee Bar, now known as the Mandela Centre, in Derby. He was dismissed by the County Council on 27 November 1989. Before the Industrial Tribunal he claimed that his dismissal was unfair and he also made a complaint as to racial discrimination.
Prior to the dismissal Mr Letford had had complaints made against him and in accordance with the County Council's disciplinary procedures, there was a Disciplinary Hearing held on 27 November 1989. That took place before Mr Horn, the Principal Assistant Director of Education. On that occasion Mr Letford was accompanied by Mr Bandele from his Equal Opportunities Unit. The allegations which he faced on that occasion were fourfold. First, he had failed to complete some weekly diary sheets; second, he had failed to discuss with the Team Leader the local circumstances sheet to be included as part of the standard job description for the team member post, required by the Council for the purposes of section 11 Local Government Act 1966; third, he had failed to attend youth work team meetings; and fourth, and much the most serious for reasons I will come to in a moment, that during the period 18 July 1988 until resumption of work in April 1989, he was gainfully employed as a part-time youth worker for another authority contrary to the regulations laid down by the Department of Social Security and contrary to the conditions of service relating to his post.
At the end of that hearing Mr Horn accepted all the allegations and dismissed Mr Letford forthwith for gross misconduct. Mr Letford then gave notice of appeal to an internal appeal panel. At the hearing before the appeal panel, Mr Letford was represented by an officer of his trade union. The panel considered that the first three of the allegations, although they amounted to misconduct, were not sufficiently serious to justify immediate dismissal in the absence of previous warnings. However as regards the fourth allegation, they found that that was made out. and that Mr Letford had absented himself and received sickness pay and also drawn State sickness benefit at the time when he was working part-time for another county council. He also, it appears, did some other youth work in Derbyshire which the Industrial Tribunal said was not directly concerned with the Mandela Centre. The internal appeal panel regarded the fourth matter as gross misconduct which justified dismissal, and accordingly upheld the decision to dismiss.
The Industrial Tribunal found that there were no procedural defects in those disciplinary proceedings, and there were no breaches of the rules of natural justice. The Tribunal found also that the reason for dismissal given by the appeal panel was a good one. They therefore dismissed Mr Letford's claim of unfair dismissal, because on those facts it was plain that the Council had acted reasonably and the Council's reaction was one within the reasonable band of responses of an employer. That is not on the face of it a decision which we could possibly interfere with. What Mr Letford has put forward to us today, which I will refer to in a little more detail in a moment, could not possibly amount to any error of law and it is of course only an error of law with which this Appeal Tribunal can be concerned.
Before the Industrial Tribunal there was also the allegation which we have mentioned of racial discrimination. It is sufficient for us to say that the Industrial Tribunal went into that and considered the facts and allegations made and found there was no evidence to support it and that no case of racial discrimination had been made out. Once again there can clearly be no error of law in that finding.
Until the end of last week, Mr Letford was represented by solicitors. Those solicitors had drafted a Notice of Appeal which raised various matters which we do not think we need to be further concerned with. At the hearing before us today however, Mr Letford has raised various other matters which do not full within the ambit of the Notice of Appeal but which we have nevertheless heard. The most serious matter, and really the only one we think we need deal with, is that (according to Mr Letford) there was a good deal of evidence including documentary evidence relating to his absence from the Mandela Centre during the important period between July 1988 and April 1989. He says that although all this documentary evidence (which we understand included a doctor's report) was before the Industrial Tribunal, the Industrial Tribunal made no mention of it at all and altogether failed to deal with it. We find that a little surprising to say the least but it must be borne in mind also that the same must apply clearly as regards the hearings before Mr Horn in the first Disciplinary Hearing and at the appeals panel. There is not a word about it in any of the documents of which we have seen, nor a word about it in the Full Reasons given by the Industrial Tribunal.
Mr Letford has effectively asked us to order the production of the Chairman's Notes before the Industrial Tribunal which he hopes would support what he says. However it seems to us that that is really something of a fishing expedition. It is now a very long time since the hearing took place. He, and he had solicitors and his trade union acting for him in the past, has had ample opportunity to apply for the production of the Chairman's Notes. With all respect to Mr Letford, we think it is now far too late for him to seek to try and obtain those notes. In the circumstances that is really the end of the matter. Although Mr Letford has lots of complaints about the decision of the Industrial Tribunal and the result of the disciplinary hearings they are clearly in our view all matters of pure fact and do not raise any issues of law. Therefore for those reasons we must dismiss the appeal.