United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


JUDGE CLARK: This is an appeal by the unsuccessful Applicant before the Southampton Industrial Tribunal sitting on 10-11 April 1996, which Tribunal dismissed his complaint of unfair dismissal against his former employers, Barclays Life. His complaint of race discrimination was withdrawn.

By letter dated 2 December 1996 his solicitors, Cope's, informed this Tribunal that they were no longer acting. As a result Mr Shabbir has appeared in person before us today.

The facts of the case are set out in some detail in the Tribunal's Extended Reasons dated 17 July 1996. It comes down to this. The Appellant was employed by the Respondent, which sells financial products, as a Senior Financial Adviser. On 5 April 1995 he attended a disciplinary hearing before Mr Hoye, the Area Sales Manager. He faced two charges:-(1) that he had used foul language to his Manager, Mr Walker, during a telephone conversation and (2) he had given misleading advice to a client, a Mr Fielden, resulting in that client discontinuing one policy and taking out another shortly thereafter, thereby giving the Appellant two sets of front-loaded commission. We understand from the Appellant that this is known as "churning" in the industry, and if it is made out, it offends best practice at a time when the regulatory authority, the PIA, is particularly sensitive to the public image of financial product selling organisations.

Mr Hoye found both charges proven and dismissed the Appellant. An internal appeal failed and he complained to the Industrial Tribunal. It is clear to us from the Extended Reasons that this case was thoroughly argued by able Counsel on both sides. The issues were clearly identified. The Industrial Tribunal made the necessary findings of fact. They rejected a conspiracy theory advanced by the Appellant. They applied the well-known three-fold Burchell test and found that that test was satisfied. They held that the two offences, both separately and jointly, rendered dismissal a sanction which fell within the range of reasonable responses open to the employer.

The one reservation which the Tribunal had was in relation to the question as to whether the Appellant received sufficient notice of the charges and their detail. It concluded that he had received sufficient notice, as a result of a telephone conversation with Mr Hoye on 22 March. Today, Mr Shabbir tells us that Mr Hoye's note of that telephone conversation was inaccurate and misleading. That is a good example of an argument which is properly raised before an Industrial Tribunal, but that once it has been adjudicated on by the Industrial Tribunal, we cannot then re-open the factual issues.

The Tribunal found in all the circumstances that the dismissal was fair. We have considered the detailed grounds of appeal in the notice prepared by the Appellant's former solicitors. Today, Mr Shabbir summarises his point in this way. He says that the Respondent's evidence before the Tribunal was misleading and perverse. Again, we repeat, questions of the credibility of witnesses and the evidence that they give, are entirely a matter for the Industrial Tribunal. The matters raised in the grounds of appeal, in our view, raise no point of law at all. They are simply an attempt to re-run the arguments before the Industrial Tribunal. That will not do. Questions of fact, says Parliament, are for the Industrial Tribunal: appeals to this Tribunal are confined to points of law only. In the absence of any such point of law, we must dismiss this appeal at this stage.