United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MS S DREW (of Counsel) Messrs Hodge Jones Allen Solicitors Twyman House 31-39 Camden Road London NW1 9LR


 


LORD JOHNSTON: This is a preliminary hearing of the appeal at the instance of Mr S R Harrison in respect of his Originating Application to the Employment Tribunal claiming both unfair dismissal on grounds of breach of contract and sexual discrimination. The respondents are the William Hill Organisation, the employer at the time. The appellant's application failed under both heads before the Industrial Tribunal and this appeal is accordingly brought.

Ms Drew appeared before us this morning to focus upon the three grounds of appeal that were originally stated under reference to a skeleton argument. The substantive claim is that in dealing with the question of constructive dismissal the tribunal have not properly addressed the factual issues on a collective basis in order to determine across the board whether the conduct of the employer can be properly categorised as amounting to a breach of the implied term in a contract of employment of mutual trust and confidence.

Without offering any positive view in the matter, we would comment in passing that we find it extraordinary that the nature of the complaint allegedly to have been made by the conduct of Mr Calvi should be considered unnecessary of investigation simply because at the material time the written policies did not include issues of sexual orientation. It seems to us that the nature of that complaint in itself is enough to require that a responsible employer take positive action to investigate its substance, particularly when it is made to a third party. That is just an incidental comment in support of the view that we are satisfied that in relation to ground 1 of the grounds of appeal, there is an issue to try and it should go to a full hearing.

We have more doubt about ground 2 in relation to the failure of the tribunal to order the discovery and production of certain tape recordings, but in view of the fact that we are allowing the case to go forward, we will leave that issue open for consideration at a full hearing.

Equally as far as the third ground is concerned to do with sexual discrimination, in so far as it is a free-standing claim, we do not consider on the face of it that the tribunal appear properly to have considered the matter, and it is therefore arguable in that respect that that approach is also flawed.

In these circumstances, the matter will be allowed to proceed to a full hearing. With regard to the request that is made that the Chairman's Notes should be produced, the preferred course that we will adopt is that we will ask the appellant to prepare through his solicitor a questionnaire on any issues of fact which they consider relevant to the issue that is raised, and we will direct that that should be submitted to the Chairman so that he can answer the questions based upon his own recollection and his notes, and we shall so order.