The claimant was employed as a shift mechanic for the respondent from 9th March 2020. He was initially based in Inverness but on 8th July 2020 the claimant was sent to join another colleague at the Kirkwall deport on the island of Orkney. When he arrived, he was not given any induction nor was he told who the safety representative was for the depot.  He was given a hotel room to reside in. On 15th July he was asked to repair a number of buses, one of which had a broken gearbox. This was something that had been fairly common, and the claimant (and his colleague) felt it was due to the wrong type of oil being used.

On 17th July 2020, the fleet engineer and chief engineer visited the Orkney depot.The claimant and his colleague were asked to meet the two at the depot at 3pm with their possessions.  At this meeting they were told to leave the island, on the basis that they had been ‘challenging management’ and that the matter would be investigated in Inverness. This led to an altercation with the claimant telling the Fleet Engineer to ‘back off’ and that he ‘disgusted’ him. On 20th July 2020 both the claimant and his colleague were suspended from employment. A disciplinary hearing was established with two allegations:

There was also reference to a bad atmosphere at the Orkney depot. This included an allegation that the claimant screamed at another worker stating that he would ‘kick his f***ing head in’.

The claimant outlined that the ‘challenging management’ accusation was in relation to the wrong oil being used.  He stated that this was part of a cover-up for the fact that the wrong oil had been continually used.

The claimant did not have the requisite continuous employment for the right not to be unfairly dismissed to crystallise.  He argued that his dismissal was automatically unfair on the basis of health or safety or by virtue of a protected disclosure. The Tribunal stated that there had been a disclosure made in relation to health and safety; namely that the wrong form of oil had been used and this could adversely affect the brakes of a public transport vehicle. While the Tribunal agreed that this disclosure had been made by the claimant, it was not the principal reason for his dismissal.  Instead, it was found that the principal reason for the dismissal was the behaviour shown by the claimant towards the Fleet Engineer on 17th July. The same decision was made in relation to a protected disclosure. For this reason, the claim was dismissed.  The Tribunal did state that they did not condone the way in which the respondent had handled the issue. This related to the failure to interview particular individuals as part of the investigation process as well as the failure to send grievance on to those involved in the process.

Practical Lessons