Ms R Jagdish v Unite Integrated Solutions plc: 3201078/2024

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 3201078/2024

Between

Ms R JagdishClaimant

Unite Integrated Solutions plcRespondent

Before

Employment Judge J Rhodes

In person for claimant

Ms L Veale (instructed by counsel) for respondent

Date 16 October 2025

JUDGMENT

[1]The complaint of sex discrimination is not well-founded and is dismissed. Approved by

[3]The complaint of sex discrimination is not well founded and is dismissed.

REASONS

[1]This is a complaint of direct sex discrimination. The claimant alleges that, by dismissing her, the respondent treated her less favourably than it treated or would have treated a man in the same material circumstances. She relies upon an actual comparator, a male Student Safety Team Leader called Carlos. She says that Carlos left up to three sites unstaffed whilst he roamed between them and was not disciplined whereas she was dismissed for leaving one side unstaffed.

[2]The respondent denies that Carlos’s circumstances were materially the same as the claimant’s. It asserts that there were several allegations of misconduct against the claimant which did not – even on the claimant’s own case - apply to Carlos. They say that the decision to dismiss the claimant was untainted by any discriminatory motive and that they would have dismissed anyone who had been found to have committed the same acts of misconduct as the claimant.

[3]I heard live evidence from the claimant. For the respondent, Ms Pudowska, Ms MacFarland and Ms Lincoln gave evidence. I found the respondent’s witnesses to be measured and reliable. The claimant’s evidence was at times contradictory and therefore less reliable. One particularly material inconsistency is addressed below.

[4]I was referred to a bundle of documents and references below to page numbers are to pages in that bundle.

The law

[5]By virtue of s13(1) Equality Act 2010: "A person(a) (A) discriminates against another

(b) (B) if, because of a protected characteristic, A treats B less favourably than A treats or would treat others."

[6]The burden of proof provisions are contained within s136(2) and (3) of that Act: "(2)If there are facts from which the court could decide, in the absence of any other explanation, that a person (A) contravened the provision concerned, the court must hold that the contravention occurred. (3)But subsection (2) does not apply if A shows that A did not contravene the provision."

[7]In a complaint of direct discrimination the initial burden of proof rests with the claimant to establish that(1) she was treated less favourably than an actual or hypothetical comparator whose circumstances were materially the same as hers and

(2) that there could have been discriminatory reasons for the less favourable treatment. If the claimant can establish these two things the burden of proof then switches to the respondent to establish that the treatment was in no sense whatsoever on the grounds of sex (Barton v Investec Henderson Crosthwaite Securities Ltd

[2003] IRLR 332

; Igen Ltd and others v Wong and other cases

[2005] IRLR 258

; Royal Mail Group Ltd v Efobi

[2021] UKSC 33

[8]However, the Tribunal should not take too rigid or mechanistic an approach to this test (Khan & anr v The Home Office

[2008] EWCA Civ 578

; Hewage v Grampian Health Board

[2012] IRLR 870

[9]Tribunals should not be too ready to infer that unreasonable or hostile behaviour on the part of the respondent necessarily supports a prima facie case of discrimination (Igen Ltd and others v Wong and other cases

[2005] IRLR 258

[10]Where (as in this case) the claimant is relying upon a real comparator (as opposed to a hypothetical one), she must do more than point to a difference in treatment and a difference in sex (Madarassy v Nomura International plc

[2007] EWCA Civ 33

). It is not enough, on its own, for the claimant to point to being the only woman in the team and the only woman who was dismissed. Such facts point only to the possibility of discrimination and would not, without more, enable a tribunal to conclude on the balance of probabilities that the respondent had committed an unlawful act of discrimination.

[11]The tribunal must analyse whether there are material differences between the claimant and her chosen comparator when considering whether the burden of proof has shifted to the respondent (Virgin Active Ltd v Hughes

[2023] EAT 130

[12]If a claimant can satisfy the first part of the burden of proof, the tribunal must then consider the reason(s) why the respondent acted as it did and whether the claimant’s protected characteristic was the reason for the decision or had a significant influence on it (Nagarajan v London Regional Transport

[1999] IRLR 513

[13]The tribunal must consider the motivation of relevant decision makers. Provided that the decision makers are not motivated by discrimination it does not necessarily matter that the decisions may in part have been taken on the basis of information that was tainted by somebody else’s discriminatory motives unless there is any evidence of collusion or joint decision-making with the person with allegedly discriminatory motives (Reynolds v CLFIS (UK) Ltd

[2015] EWCA Civ 439

) Factual findings

[14]The facts of the case are as follows.

[15]The respondent is a provider of student accommodation. The claimant began work for the respondent as a Student Safety Team Leader on 10th March 2023. The relevant duties of the claimant’s job description were quoted in the disciplinary hearing minutes at pages 375 and 376 of the bundle, as follows:• "Support the Student Safety Manager to build and develop a motivated, engaged, and high-performing team.

• Be responsible for the routine activities of your team, including delegating tasks and setting targets. Working alongside them to achieve these.

• Support the training and development of your team members to help them reach their potential.

• Take accountability for your team's responsiveness in solving students' problems.

• Support students' wellbeing should they find themselves in vulnerable or difficult situations.

• Be responsible for the safety and security of the building making sure your team conducts the necessary checks.

• Assume Student Safety Team Member duties when the Student Safety Manager is on shift."

[16]On 20th October 2023 the claimant was suspended by her manager Mr. Turner Walters pending an investigation into six allegations of potential gross misconduct which are set out at page 221. They were as follows:• "Breach of contract, specifically not working contractually required 42.5 hours in the week commencing 25th September 2023.

• Unprofessional conduct, specifically written communication with your line manager regarding work-related issues.

• Serious infringement of health and safety rules, specifically failure to have required staff present in the buildings on multiple occasions.

• Serious negligence which might cause unacceptable loss, damage or injury, specifically failure to have required staff on site on multiple occasions.

• Fraud, specifically approving overtime without business justification that has caused financial loss to the company.

• Dishonesty in your dealings with Unite Students, specifically providing false information to management on work-related matters."

[17]On 26th October 2023 the claimant submitted a grievance against Mr. Turner Walters. In that grievance she alleged that amongst other things she felt that she was being attacked by him because she was the only female on the team.

[18]The claimant’s grievance complaints and the misconduct allegations were both investigated by Ms Pudowska. Ms Pudowska did not uphold the claimant’s grievance and sent the claimant a copy of her report and supporting evidence under the cover of a letter in which Ms Pudowksa informed the claimant of her right to appeal against the grievance outcome which she did not exercise.

[19]Ms Pudowska also concluded that there was a disciplinary case for the claimant to answer in respect of each of the six allegations above albeit that she downgraded two allegations from gross misconduct to misconduct. The claimant was therefore invited to a disciplinary hearing to be chaired by Ms McFarland. She was notified that, if upheld, the allegations could lead to her dismissal.

[20]Contrary to the claimant’s assertions, I find that Ms Pudowska’s investigation was thorough and impartial. She interviewed all the relevant witnesses and thoroughly investigated all the arguments put forward by the claimant. The claimant raised an issue about two identical witness statements having been produced but I accepted the respondent’s explanation about this, namely that it was two versions of the same statement: in the first version, the witness’s name had been anonymised and, in the second, the witness’s name had been revealed. In other words, these were not two identical statements given by two different witnesses; rather, they were two versions of the same witness’s statement.

[21]It was reasonable for Ms Pudowska to conclude, based on the evidence before her, that Mr Turner Walters had not discriminated against the claimant.

[22]The disciplinary hearing took place on 30th November 2023. By the time of the hearing, the specific allegations against the claimant had been updated to the following:• "Misconduct: neglect of duty, specifically failure to apply your rota in line with contracted hours during week commencing 25th September 2023.

• Gross misconduct: unprofessional conduct, specifically written communication with your line manager regarding work-related issues.

• Gross misconduct: serious infringement of health and safety rules, specifically failure to have required staff present in the buildings.

• Misconduct: failure to follow reasonable management instructions, specifically providing overtime without required manager's approval.

• Gross misconduct: insubordination, specifically approving 3 weeks' holiday request for a team member after clear instruction from management not to do so.

• Gross misconduct: serious negligence, specifically creating a rota not providing contractual hours to a team member during week commencing 11th September 2023."

[23]The hearing was adjourned so that further investigation could be carried out into the claimant’s allegations that somebody must have hacked into her RotaGeek account and tampered with a rota she had created, and that she had not approved the annual leave request that was alleged to have been done in breach of a management instruction. These further investigations revealed that nobody had hacked into her account and that the claimant had approved the relevant leave request.

[24]The hearing reconvened on 14th December 2023 and, after considering the evidence relating to all the allegations, Ms McFarland upheld three of the six allegations against the claimant, all of which amounted to gross misconduct, and took the decision to dismiss her. The following allegations were upheld:• "Gross misconduct: unprofessional conduct, specifically written communication with your line manager regarding work-related issues.

• Gross misconduct: serious infringement of health and safety rules, specifically failure to have required staff present in the buildings.

• Gross misconduct: insubordination, specifically approving 3 weeks' holiday request for a team member after clear instruction from management not to do so."

[25]The second of the allegations which was upheld against the claimant was that she had failed to ensure that one of the buildings for which she was responsible had anybody rostered to be on duty on 4th October 2023. Further, Ms McFarland was concerned that the claimant had been dishonest when alleging that her RotaGeek account must have been hacked (in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the alleged misconduct), which itself was inconsistent with an apparent acceptance by the claimant at an earlier stage of the process that she had not rostered anyone but that this was a mistake on her part.

[26]There was also a further inconsistency in the claimant’s evidence about this during cross-examination, namely that she said it was acceptable to leave a smaller site unmanned and to staff it remotely from a nearby larger site (in other words, that this was not misconduct at all). If this genuinely was acceptable practice, the claimant would surely neither have admitted to making a mistake (as she did initially) or claimed that her account had been hacked (as she did subsequently).

[27]During the course of the internal investigation and this hearing, the claimant's position had at various times been that:• she made a mistake by not rostering anyone on Quantum Court;

• somebody had hacked her RotaGeek account and changed the rota she had created;

• it was acceptable to leave a smaller site unstaffed.

[28]Those positions are mutually inconsistent and undermine her credibility.

[29]The claimant’s case was that Carlos had left three sites unstaffed but was not subjected to any disciplinary action as a result. She relied upon extracts from the respondent’s customer incident logs as evidence for this assertion. However, the documents relied upon were not rotas and it is clear from the second of the documents relied upon at page 355 that at least two of the three sites in question were staffed by a guard. Ms MacFarland accepted in evidence that page 355 may have shown that the third site was temporarily unstaffed but that could not conclusively be established from one extract from that one document alone.

[30]However, this argument was somewhat of a red herring: the relevant allegation against the claimant was that she had failed to create a rota with sufficient cover in the buildings for which she was responsible, specifically that no member of staff had been rostered to work at Quantum Court on the date in question. This was a materially different allegation to the one which the claimant asserted Carlos was guilty of, namely temporarily leaving a site with nobody on duty.

[31]In any event, this was only one of three allegations of gross misconduct which were upheld against the claimant and there was no evidence that Carlos had committed any other acts similar to the other acts for which the claimant was dismissed (even if it were to be accepted, for the sake of argument, that he had left the third site unstaffed). Further, Ms McFarland’s evidence was that, if this had been the only allegation facing the claimant, she may not have dismissed her but it was not the only one.

[32]In the respondent’s view, the claimant’s conduct was also aggravated by the fact that Ms McFarland was concerned about the claimant’s honesty in relation to some of the evidence that she gave during the disciplinary hearing particularly in relation to the allegation that her account had been hacked and her denial that she had approved the annual leave request. Again, there was no suggestion that Carlos had been dishonest with the respondent.

Conclusions

[33]For the reasons set out above, Carlos was not in the same material circumstances as the claimant.

[34]There was no evidence on which I could conclude that the respondent would have treated a man faced with the same set of allegations of misconduct any differently to how it treated the claimant and therefore the claimant has failed to satisfy the first part of her burden of proof.

[35]In any event, even if I am wrong about that, the claimant has not established a prima facie case of discrimination. Her complaint is based upon an allegation that Mr Turner Walters had discriminatory motives towards her but the claimant must do more than merely assert that Mr. Turner Walters's alleged attitude towards her was because she was the only female member of the team.

[36]However, even if, which I do not accept, Mr. Turner Walters did have discriminatory motives, he did not conduct the disciplinary investigation into the claimant and he did not take the decision to dismiss her. The claimant accepted during cross examination that neither Ms Pudowska nor Ms McFarland were motivated by discrimination and there was no evidence that either of them colluded with Mr. Turner Walters to engineer the claimant's dismissal.

[37]I am mindful that in reaching my decision I have to take account of the relevant decision maker’s motivations and I find that they did not have any discriminatory motive and that even if, which I do not accept, Mr. Turner Walters had a discriminatory motive towards the claimant that motive did not taint any of the subsequent actions and decisions taken by Ms Pudowska and Ms McFarland, in which Mr Turner Walters played no part.

[38]Finally, for the sake of completeness, I find that, in any event, the reason for the claimant’s dismissal was misconduct and that decision was in no sense whatsoever on the grounds of, or influenced by, sex.

[39]For these reasons, I find that the claimant’s complaint is not well founded and is therefore dismissed. Approved by: Employment Judge Rhodes 7 January 2026 All judgments (apart from judgments under Rule 51) and any written reasons for the judgments are published, in full, online at https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions shortly after a copy has been sent to the claimants and respondents. If a Tribunal hearing has been recorded, you may request a transcript of the recording. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, you will have to pay for it. If a transcript is produced it will not include any oral judgment or reasons given at the hearing. The transcript will not be checked, approved or verified by a judge. There is more information in the joint Presidential Practice Direction on the Recording and Transcription of Hearings and accompanying Guidance, which can be found here: www.judiciary.uk/guidance-and-resources/employment-rules-and-legislation-practicedirections/