United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


MR JUSTICE BURTON: This is an appeal by Mr Buckley against a decision by the Employment Tribunal at Leicester on 6th October 1999 dismissing his application for compensation against the Respondent, albeit concluding that he had been unfairly dismissed.

1. The basis upon which the Tribunal concluded, within the principles of W Devis & Sons Ltd v Atkins [1977] ICR 662, that it was not just and equitable to award any compensation is that, whereas the original dismissal in February had been unfair and had been, as the Tribunal concluded, among other things, on the basis of unprovable suspicion by the Respondent that the Appellant had been involved in theft from them, after the dismissal such theft was, as the Respondent contended, proved, by information which had been supplied by a Mrs Mallard that she had seen the Appellant at a car boot sale at Saddington with a stall selling goods which she recognised as being the Respondent's stock, and that Mrs Mallard was told by him not to mention to their mutual employer, the Respondent, that he was selling its stock.
2. The Tribunal lawfully directed themselves as to how to deal with that evidence, namely that it did not justify the original dismissal, but it was limited to the issue of compensation. They accepted the evidence of Mrs Mallard. They rejected the evidence of the Appellant that he had come by the goods lawfully and that the reason why he told Mrs Mallard not to say anything was not that he told her not to say that he was selling the Respondent's stock, but simply that she should not tell the Respondent that he was involved in a car boot sale, because he did not want them to know his business.
3. Mr Buckley before us today has indicated that he would like to have considered calling another witness who might have corroborated his case that he had this stock from the Respondent at least in part with their permission, but he did not ask for an adjournment, and he has fairly told us that it was possible that he could not have got that witness along voluntarily in any event. But he certainly did put forward his case before the Tribunal that he had had some or all of the stock from the Respondent lawfully, and in particular with the permission of a Mrs Wakefield, who gave evidence, and who denied that. As I have indicated, the Tribunal rejected his evidence, and accepted the evidence of Mrs Mallard and Mrs Wakefield.
4. In those circumstances this is a pure question of fact as to which the industrial jury is well able to deal with the matter, having heard the oral evidence, and there are no conceivable grounds for an appeal to this Tribunal to interfere, and no grounds shown to support the arguability of this appeal, which is accordingly dismissed.