Mr W P Wadane v Third Financial Software Ltd and Others: 6004336/2024

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 6004336/2024

Between

Mr W P WadaneClaimant

Third Financial Software Ltd and OthersRespondent

Before

Employment Judge Baty

Ms L Simpson (instructed by counsel) for claimant

Mr M Curtis (instructed by counsel) for respondent

Date 21 November 2025

JUDGMENT

[1]The claimant’s complaints against the first respondent of harassment related to race, sexual harassment, harassment related to sex, direct sex discrimination, and victimisation (with the exception of the direct sex discrimination complaints at paragraphs 18(b), (d) and (e); and the victimisation complaints at paragraphs 24(c), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h) and (i) of the agreed list of issues (“LOI”) were presented out of time and it was not just and equitable to extend time. The tribunal does not therefore have jurisdiction to hear those complaints and they are struck out. Even if the tribunal had had jurisdiction to hear those complaints, they would all have failed.

[2]The claimant’s complaints against the second and third respondents of harassment related to race, sexual harassment, harassment related to sex, direct sex discrimination, and victimisation (with the exception of the direct sex discrimination complaints at paragraphs 18(d) and (e); and the victimisation complaints at paragraphs 24(e), (f), (g), (h) and (i) of the LOI) were presented out of time and it was not just and equitable to extend time. The tribunal does not therefore have jurisdiction to hear those complaints and they are struck out. Even if the tribunal had had jurisdiction to hear those complaints, they would all have failed. Case No: 6004336/2024

[3]The claimant’s complaints against the fourth and fifth respondents of harassment related to race, sexual harassment, harassment related to sex, direct sex discrimination, and victimisation were all presented out of time and it was not just and equitable to extend time. The tribunal does not therefore have jurisdiction to hear those complaints and they are struck out. Even if the tribunal had had jurisdiction to hear those complaints, they would all have failed.

[4]The claimant’s remaining complaints of direct sex discrimination, and victimisation all fail. JUDGMENT having been sent to the parties on 1 December 2025 and written reasons having been requested by the claimant on 12 December 2025 in accordance with Rule 60 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure, the following reasons are provided:

REASONS

The complaints

[1]By a claim form presented to the employment tribunal on 20 June 2024, the claimant brought complaints of harassment related to race, sexual harassment, harassment related to sex, direct sex discrimination, and victimisation. - 1 -

[2]The respondents defended the complaints.

[3]All of the complaints were brought against both the first and second respondents (the two corporate entities, Third Financial Software Ltd and Third Platform Services Ltd); the complaints were also brought variously against the three individual named respondents.

[4]A preliminary hearing for case management purposes was held on 17 October 2024 before Employment Judge Youngs. All parties were represented by counsel at that hearing. At that hearing, this final hearing was listed for five days from 23-27 June 2025. The final hearing was listed on the basis that, if time permitted, remedy would be considered at the final hearing as well as liability. It was listed to take place, and did take place, in person at the London Central tribunal. The claimant’s employer

[5]It is not in dispute that the claimant was employed from 24 October 2022 until 16 February 2024, as an Investment Administrator. The first respondent and the second respondent accept that they were jointly the employer of the claimant and that they were and are jointly and severally liable for the actions of each of the named individual respondents.

[6]For the purposes of this claim, therefore, and with the limited exception of the issues relating to time limits, nothing turns on which of the corporate entities was the employer of the claimant. In any event, we have no reason not to accept the respondents’ position that the first and second respondents were jointly the employer of the claimant (just as they were jointly the employer of other employees employed in their business) and we, therefore, accept that they were jointly the employer of the claimant.

[7]For the remainder of these reasons, references to “the respondent” are to the claimant’s employer, in other words both the first and second respondent together. The three individual respondents are referred to by their names, respectively Mr Scott, Ms Hazle and Ms Rana.

The issues

[8]The issues of the claim had for the most part been agreed between the representatives and EJ Youngs at the preliminary hearing, subject to a few minor changes and clarifications which were dealt with between the parties after that preliminary hearing. However, by the start of this final hearing, the parties had an agreed list of issues, which was contained in the bundle at page 128. That version was still in track changes but, at the tribunal’s request, Ms Simpson forwarded a clean version of that list of issues to the tribunal, with one further change in it (at paragraph 24(d)) which was agreed between the representatives.

[9]A copy of that list of issues is annexed to these reasons. Those were the issues for the tribunal to determine. - 2 -

The evidence

[10]Witness evidence was heard from the following: For the claimant: The claimant himself; and Mrs Priti Paliha Wadane, the claimant’s wife. . For the respondent: Mr Jack Wynn, the respondent’s Head of Regulated Operations and the line manager of Ms Hazle; Ms Chetna Rana, the fifth respondent, who is and has since May 2023 been employed by the respondent as an Investment Administrator; Ms Eve Hazle, the fourth respondent, who is the respondent’s Corporate Actions Manager and who was at the times relevant to this claim the line manager of both the claimant and Ms Rana; and Mr Michael Scott, the fifth respondent, who is and was at the times relevant to this claim the respondent’s Chief Financial Officer.

[11]An agreed bundle numbered pages 1-673 was produced to the tribunal.

[12]In addition, Ms Simpson produced an opening note. The opening note contained a chronology, although Mr Curtis said that he had not yet had the opportunity to review it so as to confirm that it was an agreed chronology.

[13]The tribunal read in advance the witness statements and any documents in the bundle to which they referred, together with Ms Simpson’s opening note. Timetable

[14]Although the hearing had been listed for five days, the judge was not available on Tuesday, 24 June 2025, because he had already been assigned to another case that day. The hearing was therefore limited to 4 days.

[15]The judge discussed timetabling with the representatives at the start of the hearing. Indeed, the representatives had helpfully already considered the matter, with a proposed timetable having been set out in Ms Simpson’s opening note. A timetable for completion of the evidence and submissions on liability was agreed between the tribunal and the representatives at the start of the hearing. It was agreed that this would enable the evidence and submissions on liability to be completed within the four days of the case, albeit it was acknowledged that judgment on liability would likely be reserved, as there would not be enough time for the tribunal to deliberate and deliver an oral judgment within the four days. - 3 - Adjournment of hearing

[16]The representatives broadly adhered to the timetable until Thursday 26 June 2025, which was the third day of the hearing. It was anticipated under the timetable that Ms Simpson would by the end of that day have completed her cross-examination of the remaining two witnesses of the respondent, Ms Hazle and Mr Scott, with the remainder of the day to be left to the representatives to work on their written submissions, with submissions then to be delivered on the final day of the hearing.

[17]However, Ms Simpson took longer than anticipated with her crossexamination. She completed her cross-examination of Ms Hazle in the morning and began cross-examining Mr Scott in the afternoon but, by the end of the afternoon, she said she still had half an hour of cross-examination left for Mr Scott. As it would still have been possible to complete Mr Scott’s evidence and deal with submissions the next day, the tribunal agreed that she could complete her cross-examination of Mr Scott the next day. The hearing then adjourned for the day.

[18]However, at 9.00 AM on the morning of the fourth and final day of the hearing, the tribunal received an email from Ms Simpson containing an application to adjourn the hearing because of her own inability to attend that day due to ill health. She set out in that application some background and context to the ill health issues, which it is not necessary to repeat here. She had spoken to Mr Curtis about the application that morning prior to sending her application to the tribunal.

[19]The claimant, Mrs Wadane, Mr Scott and Mr Curtis all attended the tribunal that morning.

[20]Ms Simpson had been representing the claimant on a direct access basis. She had been accompanied through part of the hearing by Mr Loxton, who was a pupil but was not direct access trained and so unable to represent the claimant. Mr Loxton attended the tribunal on that final day and, whilst the claimant was technically representing himself (as Mr Loxton was not able to represent him), Mr Loxton was helpfully able to send messages and obtain information and instructions from Ms Simpson (who was not present at the tribunal).

[21]Mr Curtis acknowledged that what had happened was very unfortunate but agreed that the hearing could not continue that day in the absence of Ms Simpson. The tribunal agreed with this and agreed that the hearing would need to be adjourned for that day.

[22]However, the tribunal acknowledged that it was very far from ideal that a hearing should go part heard part way through the evidence and that every effort should be made to try to relist it as soon as possible.

[23]The tribunal then attempted to do so and a considerable amount of time was spent in this respect, with various adjournments, and messages going backand-forth between Mr Loxton and Ms Simpson. The tribunal was able to make - 4 - itself available for two days the following week, but ultimately these clashed with pre-existing commitments which either Ms Simpson or Mr Curtis had. Thereafter, the tribunal was not available until the autumn.

[24]Ultimately, the earliest dates which all parties and representatives could make were 19-21 November 2025 and the hearing was relisted for those dates. The judge made it clear that the expectation was that Mr Scott’s evidence and written and oral submissions would be completed on the first of these days (19 November 2025) and that the parties may not, therefore, even need to attend on 20-21 November 2025, and the judge asked Mr Loxton to communicate this clearly to Ms Simpson.

[25]The reason the tribunal listed three further days was to enable the tribunal to have time to deliberate on its decision and reach a judgment, taking into account that, given the large gap in time, the tribunal may need to do a considerable amount of reading back into the documentation and evidence which it had by then already heard.

[26]Mr Curtis asked whether, in that case, it might be possible for the tribunal to give an oral judgement on the last of these three days. The judge said that, given the amount of time that the tribunal might need to re-read into matters, the tribunal would not commit to this but that, if the parties wanted to attend the tribunal on the final day of the relisted hearing for an oral judgment and the tribunal was ready to give one, the tribunal would be prepared to do so. However, the judge said that he was also conscious of the potential costs to the parties of counsel committing to being available for the final day of that hearing. It was therefore agreed that the representatives would contact the tribunal within seven days to confirm whether they wished the tribunal to give an oral judgment on the third day of the relisted hearing if the tribunal was in a position to do so (although ultimately the decision on what to do would remain at the discretion of the tribunal). Mr Scott’s evidence

[27]The one remaining issue was what to do regarding Mr Scott, whose evidence had not been completed and who was therefore still on oath.

[28]Mr Curtis proposed that, in light of the considerable number of months before he would recommence giving evidence, he should simply be released from his oath until then. Mr Scott was the respondent’s Chief Financial Officer. It was entirely impracticable for him to be unable to discuss any matters which might relate to the case over such a long period or to be unable to give instruction about the case to the respondent’s advisers or receive advice from them over that period. Mr Curtis said that, up until that point, Mr Scott had been the main point of contact in terms of instructing him on behalf the respondents. In the circumstances, Mr Curtis said that releasing Mr Scott from his oath was the least bad option.

[29]Although Mr Loxton could not express an opinion, he communicated with Ms Simpson about this. Ms Simpson then communicated in electronic form her - 5 - submissions on the issue, which the claimant read out to the tribunal. She opposed Mr Curtis’ proposal and suggested that Mr Scott should remain on oath until the reconvened hearing. She suggested that, if he felt that he needed to discuss any aspect of the case, he could make an application to the tribunal and the tribunal could make a decision on whether that should be permitted.

[30]The tribunal adjourned briefly to consider its decision.

[31]When it returned, it informed those present that it had decided that Mr Scott should be released from his oath. This was essentially for the reasons which Mr Curtis had given. It was not Mr Scott’s fault that the hearing had had to be postponed, in the midst of his evidence, for a period of several months. It would have been intolerable to expect Mr Scott to stay silent about the case over such a long period. Ms Simpson’s suggestion that, every time he needed to speak about it, he should make an application to the tribunal (which might take several weeks to be granted or refused) was hopelessly impractical. Furthermore, there would be considerable prejudice to the respondent if Mr Scott could not give instructions in relation to the case.

[32]The judge expressed surprise at the position adopted by Ms Simpson in the circumstances. In the tribunal’s view, releasing Mr Scott from his oath was the only practicable and fair decision in the circumstances. Furthermore, although Ms Simpson’s becoming unable to continue the hearing due to ill health was obviously not her fault, the issue of the hearing adjourning part way through Mr Scott’s evidence arose because Ms Simpson failed to complete her crossexamination of him within the timetable which she had committed to at the start of the hearing.

[33]The hearing then adjourned. Oral judgment

[34]As referenced above, both parties did contact the tribunal within seven days of this regarding the possibility of an oral judgment being given at the end of the reconvened hearing. The respondent requested that an oral judgment be given if it was possible to do so; however the claimant stated that he would prefer the judgment to be reserved on the basis that “a written decision would provide greater clarity and assist with any future considerations”.

[35]The judge therefore subsequently wrote to the parties about this on 16 July 2025. He indicated that the tribunal would normally, if practicable, given an oral judgment (with its reasons for that judgment) at a hearing; that, furthermore, even if that was done, the parties could still ask for the reasons in writing to be produced, so giving an oral judgment would not prevent the production of a written judgment and reasons, as the claimant was at that point seeking; that, therefore, if it was practicable for the tribunal to give an oral judgment on 21 November 2025, it would do so; but that, in any case, the parties should ensure that they were available to attend the tribunal for that eventuality on 21 November 2025. - 6 - Reconvened final hearing

[36]The hearing then reconvened on 19 November 2025.

[37]Prior to the start of the reconvened hearing, the respondent submitted an updated version of the bundle, containing extra documents at pages 674-702. At the start of the reconvened hearing, both representatives confirmed that these documents had been added to the bundle by agreement.

[38]At the reconvened hearing, Mr Scott’s evidence was duly completed.

[39]Both representatives then handed up written submissions, which the tribunal read in advance of hearing their oral submissions. Submissions were completed by mid-afternoon on 19 November 2025.

[40]The hearing then adjourned for the tribunal to deliberate on its decision. The hearing reconvened on 21 November 2025 for the tribunal to give the parties its judgment and the reasons for that judgment orally. At the respondent’s request, to which the claimant did not object, the hearing reconvened on 21 November 2025 remotely by CVP. Management of the hearing

[41]The hearing was on the whole an easy hearing to manage, largely because of the preparation for it done by the two representatives and the manner in which they conducted it.

[42]The judge rarely had to make any interventions. The only interventions of significance which the judge had to make came during the claimant’s evidence. The claimant had a repeated pattern of not answering the questions which were put to him and going off on tangents. The judge let a lot of this go initially and left Mr Curtis to deal with it, particularly as it did not appear to be impacting upon the timetable for the hearing. However, at one point later in the claimant’s evidence, the judge did interject and told the claimant that he was repeatedly not answering the questions which had been put to him and was persistently going off on tangents; that this had been a pattern throughout his evidence; and that the judge wanted him to focus on the questions which were put to him and to answer them.

Findings of fact

[43]We make the following findings of fact. In doing so, we do not repeat all of the evidence, even where it is disputed, but confine our findings to those necessary to determine the agreed issues. We begin with an overview, before going on to make our more detailed findings of fact. Overview

[44]The first respondent (Third Financial Software Ltd) and second respondent (Third Platform Services Ltd) are an investment platform software - 7 - provider. The first respondent is an investment platform for UK based wealth managers. It is a technology provider to external wealth managers and to the second respondent, which provides custody and clearing services for wealth managers, advisers and their clients.

[45]At the times relevant to this claim, the respondent was a relatively small business with only around 90-100 employees in total. It did not have an internal HR department. When HR-related issues arose, the respondent used and consulted with an external body which provides HR services and advice called “HR Dept”. The respondent has since been taken over by a larger organisation; however, although the contract for sale of the respondent to that organisation was signed on 8 February 2024, the takeover itself did not occur until after the events relating to this claim and after the claimant had left the respondent’s employment on 16 February 2024.

[46]Mr Scott is the respondent’s Chief Financial Officer. He is, therefore, one of the most senior employees in the business. He has been employed by the respondent for over six years. His duties include being responsible for the business’ finances, payroll, expenses, HR, tax, client money and prudential regulatory compliance. When HR issues arose, therefore, they were his responsibility. However, as already noted, in such circumstances he would and did take external advice from HR Dept.

[47]As we have already found, employees of the business were employed jointly by both the first and second respondents.

[48]The claimant was employed by the respondent from 24 October 2022 until he was dismissed by the respondent on and with effect from 16 February 2024. He was at all times employed as an Investment Administrator.

[49]The claimant at all times reported to Ms Hazle, the Corporate Actions Manager.

[50]Ms Hazle reports to Mr Wynn, the Head of Regulated Operations, who in turn reports to Mr Greg Parish, the Operations Director.

[51]Mr Scott, Mr Parish and Mr Wynn are on the respondent’s Senior Leadership Team; Mr Scott and Mr Parrish are also on the respondent’s Executive Committee. The respondent’s CEO at the time was Mr Ian Partington.

[52]Ms Hazle manages the Corporate Actions Team, which had around five team members at the time, including the claimant. The team covers all aspects of corporate actions, including capital and income and proxy voting. It is a very busy team which deals with some very high volumes, so the team needs to be methodical and accurate in its approach.

[53]When the claimant joined the Corporate Actions Team, he had a high degree of knowledge and experience in the area. - 8 -

[54]In May 2023, Ms Rana joined the respondent. She at all times worked in the Corporate Actions Team and also reported to Ms Hazle.

[55]When she joined the team, Ms Rana had no prior experience in the area. However, she worked exceptionally hard and has since become an integral member of the team.

[56]At the time, the team was largely split into two sides, with one side dealing with “capital” corporate actions (such as takeovers, tender offers etc), and the other with “income” (income received on bonds, equities, unit trusts etc). Both the claimant and Ms Rana were working on the income side.

[57]Towards the start of Ms Rana’s employment, Ms Hazle asked the claimant, with his greater experience, to assist in Ms Rana’s initial training, which he did.

[58]In the summer of 2023, the claimant raised an issue with Ms Hazle concerning Ms Rana. There is a substantial dispute between the parties about the extent of what the claimant told Ms Hazle (and how often), which we will return to later. The respondent maintains that the claimant raised an issue about a single instance of a comment which he alleged Ms Rana had made to him; whereas the claimant’s position is that he raised concerns about a whole raft of offensive comments which he alleges Ms Rana made to him.

[59]There is considerable dispute between the parties about this matter and about what happened thereafter and we will return to these matters in our more detailed findings of fact later on. However, for now we summarise the events for the purposes of this overview.

[60]Advice was taken by the respondent from HR Dept in September 2023.

[61]In December 2023, the claimant raised work-related concerns about Ms Rana. Around the same time, he also raised concerns about offensive comments which she had allegedly made to him.

[62]On 30 December 2023, the claimant submitted a formal complaint in writing about the comments which he alleged Ms Rana had made.

[63]Mr Scott investigated the complaint. As part of his investigation, he met the claimant on 5 January 2024 and he met Ms Rana on 17 January 2024.

[64]On 26 January 2024, a female employee of the respondent from a different part of the business to the Corporate Actions Team (“Ms Y”) approached Mr Scott and told him that she wanted to make a complaint, but she did not at that point give Mr Scott any details of that complaint nor did she tell him about whom she wished to complain. (Mr Scott gave the evidence of this initial approach to him by Ms Y by way of an addition to his witness statement just before he affirmed the truth of his witness statement at the start of his oral evidence. Ms Simpson submitted that this interaction never took place, that Mr Scott made this up and that he did so out of concern about what she considered - 9 - was a suspicious chronology of events following the claimant’s grievance outcome. However, for reasons set out below, we have no concerns about the reliability of Mr Scott’s evidence generally. Furthermore, inventing this alleged meeting would do little to alleviate any such alleged suspicion as it took place only three days prior to the outcome of the claimant’s grievance and, on Mr Scott’s own evidence, on 26 January 2024 Ms Y did not even identify the claimant as the being the person about whom she wished to complain or give any details of the complaint. It is difficult to see what Mr Scott would gain by inventing such an interaction. We therefore reject Ms Simpson’s submission and accept Mr Scott’s evidence in this respect.)

[65]Mr Scott did not uphold the claimant’s complaint about Ms Rana and communicated this outcome to the claimant in writing on 29 January 2024.

[66]Ms Y had a meeting with Mr Scott on 2 February 2024. She told him the details of her complaint, which was about the claimant. She made allegations of a pattern of behaviour by the claimant towards her over a period of time which made her very uncomfortable and which, if true, could amount to a pattern of harassment of her by the claimant.

[67]Mr Scott held a meeting with the claimant on 9 February 2024 about the allegations made by Ms Y.

[68]At a meeting on 16 February 2024, the claimant was dismissed with immediate effect by the respondent. He was paid in lieu of his three month notice period.

[69]On 23 February 2024, the claimant emailed Mr Partington indicating that he wished to appeal against his dismissal.

[70]On 26 February 2024, Mr Partington emailed the claimant, stating that because the claimant had been employed by the respondent for under 24 months, there was no obligation for them to carry out a formal disciplinary process and that he did not have the right to an appeal. No appeal took place. Reliability of evidence

[71]Before going on to make our more detailed findings of fact, we first make some findings about the respective reliability of the evidence given by the claimant’s witnesses and the respondents’ witnesses.

[72]Many of the complaints brought under this claim centre around factual findings as to whether or not particular comments were made, in circumstances where all parties acknowledge that no one else was present, and it is therefore a matter of one person’s word against another’s.

[73]This is relevant in particular to the many comments alleged by the claimant to have been made to him by Ms Rana but also in other areas, for example certain comments which the claimant alleges were made to him by Ms Hazle. - 10 - The claimant

[74]We did not find that the claimant was a reliable witness.

[75]In his evidence before the tribunal, the claimant was evasive in the extreme. He persistently failed to answer the questions put to him, frequently going off on lengthy tangents and giving evidence which was nothing to do with the question which had been asked. Mr Curtis’ cross-examination questions were particularly clear and there was no reason why the claimant needed to do this. Mr Curtis frequently repeated the question so there was no doubt as to what was being asked, and yet the claimant still avoided answering it and went off on tangents. As noted already, although the judge let a lot of this go initially, there came a point when the judge felt the need to intervene to ask the claimant to answer the questions being put to him. We consider that the claimant was deliberately not answering questions which he did not want to answer.

[76]Furthermore his evidence developed and was embellished over the course of the allegations which he made during his employment, into his written complaint and then into his tribunal claim. This was particularly in relation to the comments allegedly made by Ms Rana and there are a number of examples, which we consider when we address those alleged comments in our findings below.

[77]Furthermore, there were numerous occasions when the evidence given by the claimant lacked plausibility or was confused and contradictory. One such example was the evidence he gave regarding his old phone (which was relevant because he maintained he was not able to access and therefore provide to the tribunal messages, including messages between him and his wife, a point which became irrelevant when Mrs Wadane later confirmed that she would have been able to access the messages on her phone). In his witness statement, the claimant said that his phone had been broken. At the end of his oral evidence, in answering questions from Mr Williams, the claimant said that his old phone had been broken but was still usable and he continued to use it; he then bought a new phone but continued to use the old phone; then his old phone was stolen when his car was broken into and he didn’t have any data backed up because “I don’t like backing up things”. The evidence was inconsistent, contradictory and implausible.

[78]Furthermore, in relation to many of the serious allegations of comments made in the summer of 2023 which form the basis of his claim, there was, with one exception, an almost complete absence of contemporaneous evidence indicating that such comments were made or may have been made. In the age of email and text message/WhatsApp communication, that is very surprising. We have seen several text/WhatsApp messages between the claimant and his wife in the bundle; they were clearly in the habit of communicating with each other regularly by text/WhatsApp, including about matters related to the claimant’s work, and, as noted, Mrs Wadane confirmed that there was no reason why she could not have produced messages on her phone dating back to that period; and yet there were no messages which evidenced that these comments had been - 11 - made or that the claimant, as he maintained at this tribunal, complained about them to Ms Hazle at the time.

[79]There were a lot of disputes about the notes taken of meetings with the claimant, in particular the grievance meeting on 5 January 2024 and the meetings on 9 and 16 February 2024. The claimant submitted to the tribunal his own sets of notes, which are at considerable variance to the notes made at the times of those meetings by the respondent (specifically by Mr Wynn at the 5 January and 9 February 2024 meetings and Ms Hazle at the 16 February 2024 meetings). The claimant’s notes are peppered with references to, for example, Mr Scott having said certain things which would be indicative of a sex discriminatory mindset on his part, but do not in any way ring true as likely to have been said in the context of those meetings (and which are not contained in the respondents’ contemporaneous notes and are denied as having been said by the respondents’ witnesses who were present at those meetings (Mr Scott, Mr Wynn and Ms Hazle respectively)).

[80]Furthermore, the claimant admitted in evidence that the notes which he produced and which he said were his record of the 5 January 2024 meeting were actually made by him in June 2024, some five months later; he accepted in cross-examination that he neither made a contemporaneous note of the meeting itself nor that he recorded that meeting; and yet the notes which he produced some five months later read like a verbatim account, as if indeed they were a transcript of a recording. These notes were presented as if they were accurate notes of the meeting. However, they clearly could not have been, given the five month gap. Furthermore, the fact that the claimant presented them as such is indicative of his approach, which is at best completely misguided and at worst utterly dishonest.

[81]The claimant produced in the bundle for the hearing transcripts of telephone conversations with a former colleague of his (Ms X) in Ms Hazle’s team, which he covertly recorded. The recorded conversations last several hours. They were made at some point well after the claimant’s employment with the respondent terminated. As the claimant is aware, Ms X is still an employee at the respondent in Ms Hazle’s team, reporting to Ms Hazle. In the conversations, the claimant was clearly fishing for whatever information he could possibly find that might assist him in his employment tribunal claim. His questioning leads Ms X, who was unaware that she was being recorded, at points to make critical remarks about her manager, Ms Hazle. At one point in the transcript (page 479), Ms X specifically says to the claimant “this is not to go anywhere” and the claimant replies “No, no, no, man.”. Notwithstanding Ms X’s specific request and the fact that the claimant assured her that what she was saying would not go further, the claimant had the recordings transcribed and added to the bundle, knowing that they would be available to Ms Hazle, who was one of the respondents. His assurance to Ms X and his deliberately acting in contravention of that assurance is a further indication of his dishonesty. When asked in crossexamination whether he had considered the implications of this for Ms X, he simply said that he was “ruthless” and that he prioritised his tribunal claim over any negative impact that this might have on Ms X. This behaviour is indicative of the claimant’s deceptiveness to others and of the fact that he is prepared to go to - 12 - any lengths to get what he wants, regardless of the potentially serious consequences for others.

[82]In summary, we have serious concerns about the reliability of the evidence given by the claimant. We are, therefore, not inclined to accept anything he asserts except where it is backed up by contemporaneous evidence or by the evidence of other (reliable) witnesses. Mrs Wadane

[83]Mrs Wadane does not work for the respondent. She was not present at any of the alleged interchanges or meetings at the respondent and could not, therefore, give any direct witness evidence about the allegations which are the subject of the claim. For that reason, her evidence is of little assistance.

[84]However, what she sought to do in her witness statement was to suggest that, at the times at which the claimant now says that the alleged comments were made (for example in the summer of 2023), she noticed that the claimant was upset and asked him why and he told her (at that time) about the comments. We have already noted the absence of any contemporaneous emails/text messages/WhatsApp messages evidencing that the claimant told her about the alleged comments at the time and that in itself is highly surprising. For that reason alone, we are sceptical about the truth of her evidence.

[85]It is not remotely credible that, if the comments were not made, the claimant nonetheless asserted to his wife in the summer of 2023 that they were indeed made. It therefore follows, of course, that if the comments were not made, and the claimant did not tell his wife about those comments at the time, that Mrs Wadane has come to this tribunal to lie. The respondents’ witnesses

[86]We did not have any reason to doubt the reliability of the evidence given by the respondents’ witnesses. They sought to answer the questions put to them and, whilst they often gave context for their answers, they answered the questions put. Their oral evidence was in all material respects consistent with their witness statements, with the witness statements of the other witnesses for the respondents and, in relation to the many allegations where there was contemporaneous documentation, with those contemporaneous documents.

Summary

[87]Therefore, where there is a conflict between the evidence of the claimant (and/or Mrs Wadane) and the evidence of the respondents’ witnesses, we are inclined to prefer the evidence of the respondents’ witnesses. More detailed findings of fact The claimant’s complaint in the summer of 2023 - 13 -

[88]The offensive comments which the claimant alleges that Ms Rana made to him in the summer of 2023 (May – June 2023) are set out in the list of issues at paragraph 5(a-e) (which are allegations of harassment related to race) and at paragraph 9(a) (which is an allegation of sexual harassment/harassment related to sex). There are therefore multiple comments alleged to have been made by Ms Rana; specifically six different factual allegations.

[89]The claimant’s evidence is that “in or around” June 2023, he told his manager, Ms Hazle, verbally on a Microsoft Teams conversation, that Ms Rana had made all of these comments; he maintains that Ms Hazle told him that she would consult with Mr Wynn and get back to him (although, apparently, no action was taken). He then maintains that he raised the comments again with Ms Hazle during a further Microsoft teams conversation on or around 11 July 2023 but that, to his knowledge, again no action was taken. Strikingly, the claimant in both his written and oral witness evidence gave little more context than that in relation to what he maintains he said to Ms Hazle about the actual comments or the context in which they were allegedly made by Ms Rana.

[90]Ms Hazle’s evidence is that, although she was, for personal reasons, working remotely for several weeks from the end of June 2023 onwards, she still had daily catch ups with her team to review workload and had plenty of individual conversations with everyone during the period, so there were plenty of opportunities to discuss any other issues, as she was always available for a chat. During one such meeting, the claimant raised some concerns about Ms Rana; specifically he said that Ms Rana had said something racist which related to what Ms Hazle took to be the claimant’s wife’s family’s religion and that the comment made had been that “they are all up themselves”. However, the claimant specifically stated and stressed that he did not wish to make an official complaint or for things to go further. Ms Hazle therefore felt at the time that all she could do was to try to monitor the situation; if the claimant had wanted her to take further action, she would have done so, but the claimant was very clear that he did not want anything to be done. Ms Hazle felt that she and the claimant had a good relationship and that he would inform her if anything further was said. However, the claimant never reverted to her to indicate that anything further had been said.

[91]Ms Hazle was, therefore, clear throughout her evidence that the claimant only reported a single comment allegedly made by Ms Rana and only did so on one occasion (as opposed to two separate occasions which the claimant maintains). Much was made by Ms Simpson in cross-examination about whether Ms Hazle thought that the claimant had reported this to her in June 2023 or, as she said in her witness statement, early July 2023 and, indeed, some of the other documents in the bundle suggest that the respondent’s position was that the claimant had reported this to her in June 2023. However, the precise timing of the conversation, of which there is no contemporaneous note, is not material; it matters not whether it occurred in June or in early July 2023; the important point is that Ms Hazle’s clear and consistent evidence was that the claimant only reported this to her once.

[92]By way of explanation, Ms Hazle acknowledges that the claimant used the word “Gujarati” when he reported the matter to her (the claimant’s wife is - 14 - Gujarati). However, at the time Ms Hazle mistakenly thought that this was a reference to the claimant’s wife’s religion rather than to the state in India from which she originated. However, Ms Hazle was clear that the claimant did not in his conversation with her reference “Punjabi”, which he maintains was referenced both by Ms Rana to him and by himself when he reported the comment to Ms Hazle (as per the wording in paragraph 5(b) of the LOI).

[93]As noted, Ms Hazle was away from the office for much of the summer of 2023 and she was also unwell for parts of September 2023. She maintains that, notwithstanding the claimant’s clear instruction that he did not want anything to be done, the incident concerned her and played on her mind so that, when she got back to the office, on 22 September 2023, she reported it to Mr Wynn and Mr Scott.

[94]Mr Scott was, at this tribunal, unequivocal that he would have wanted Ms Hazle to have reported it straight away, notwithstanding the claimant having asked her not to, and we accept that. In any event, on 22 September 2023 Mr Scott immediately contacted HR Dept, the external HR consultancy, and took advice.

[95]A meeting took place between the HR consultant from HR Dept, Mr Scott, Mr Wynn and Ms Hazle on the morning of 26 September 2023. A detailed follow-up email later that morning from HR Dept summarises the advice given, which Mr Scott followed. Both Mr Scott’s email to HR Dept and the more detailed email from HR Dept are consistent with the account given by Ms Hazle. Mr Scott’s email states, in relation to “an inappropriate remark” (singular) that “we don’t know too much information at this stage”. The reply from the HR team following the meeting similarly references a single remark: “The comments related to a particular religious group and the employee suggested that “they didn’t like them”. The employee that raised the concern felt it was inappropriate and their partner is of that religious group”. It also references Ms Hazle having specifically confirmed that at the time the employee “didn’t want to make “a big deal” of the incident”. It also states that “there have been no further incidents since that time”, which would be consistent with Ms Hazle’s evidence that the claimant spoke to her only once, not twice as he maintains at this tribunal. The contents of these emails can only have been based on what Ms Hazle told Mr Scott and HR Dept in September 2023. There is no reason why she would not at that stage, when she had a good relationship with the claimant and there was no indication that any of the subsequent events which are the subject of these proceedings might occur, give them an accurate account of what she had been told by the claimant.

[96]Furthermore, we consider that, if the claimant had on two occasions raised not just one issue but six different serious alleged comments, and had not told his manager that he specifically did not want the matter taking further, it is inconceivable that Ms Hazle would not immediately have raised the matter with Mr Wynn and/or Mr Scott.

[97]We can also appreciate the reluctance on Ms Hazle’s part to raise the issue further in the circumstances she describes; on the one hand, she was - 15 - concerned about the issue raised with her, but on the other she had a relationship of trust with her direct report, the claimant, and she understandably considered that raising the matter further in contravention of his wishes might be seen as breaching that trust.

[98]At one point during the claimant’s covertly recorded conversations with Ms X after his employment ended, he states to Ms X: “I’m going to tell you the truth of how it works here, and it ain’t gonna be up to you. You’re not gonna be able to control where Eve takes it internally. And it - Which she will take it somewhere. She will definitely take it somewhere. So if you mention it to Eve, it will go to Jack, and it will go to Mike Scott. And it will go to, erm, basically the outsourced HR Department…”. The claimant is clearly referring to his own experience of having raised a concern with Ms Hazle and, despite his not wanting it to happen, that complaint being taken further by Ms Hazle (specifically to Mr Wynn, Mr Scott and HR Dept, which is precisely what happened in his case). His concern is in fact consistent with Ms Hazle’s evidence, that he specifically told her not to take the matter further, and he appears annoyed in this exchange that ultimately she did do that. What he expresses annoyance about in this conversation is that Ms Hazle did take the matter further; that is completely at odds with his position at this tribunal that he is aggrieved that she did not take the matter further as soon as he told her about it. It is also powerful evidence that, in the summer of 2023 when he raised the matter with Ms Hazle, he did not want her to take it further, and it is therefore more likely that he told her at the time that he did not want her to take it further.

[99]Furthermore, we reiterate the findings that we have made about the respective reliability of the evidence of the claimant in comparison to that of Ms Hazle and the other witnesses of the respondents.

[100]For these reasons, we have no hesitation in accepting the account given by Ms Hazle in this respect.

[101]Accordingly, we find that the claimant raised the matter with Ms Hazle on only one occasion; that what he actually said was what Ms Hazle has described him as having said (in other words, whilst what he raised was of concern, it was not nearly on the scale of the Gujarati-related comment which he now says he raised, let alone on the scale of that comment coupled with the five other comments which he alleges that he raised with Ms Hazle at the time; that he specifically told Ms Hazle that he did not want her to raise the matter further; and that that, coupled with her prolonged absences from the business over the period from late June into September 2023, was the reason why she did not raise the matter further until September 2023. HR Dept advice in September 2023

[102]The HR Dept advice at the meeting on 26 September 2023 was to check-in with the employee in question (the claimant) the next time there was a one-on-one meeting with that employee to see if there had been any further incidents and, if there had been any further incidents, to take a note of them and - 16 - ask the claimant what action he would like to take (informal or formal action). We do not consider that that was unreasonable advice in the circumstances.

[103]On 26 September 2023, after the meeting with HR Dept, Ms Hazle did speak to the claimant. Her evidence is that his response was that everything was great and that he and Ms Rana were getting along really well, and he was very happy; she thought that the words he used were “good as gold”.

[104]The claimant denied that he said this to Ms Hazle. We were not clear whether he was seeking to deny that there was any conversation at all with Ms Hazle about the issue on 26 September 2023, but that was again typical of the vagueness of the positions that the claimant adopted and the evidence which he gave.

[105]However, in a contemporaneous email from Ms Hazle on 26 September 2023, to Mr Scott, Mr Wynn and HR Dept, Ms Hazle wrote: “I’ve just spoken to Gamine for our scheduled 121 and he has said there are no issues now and he is very happy. He and Chetna are working well and there have been no further incidents.”

[106]Ms Simpson suggested that the timing of that email, which was at 11:37 AM on 26 September 2023 and which was a reply to the advice email from HR Dept which was at 11:13 AM that day was suspicious, in that the time gap of only 23 minutes would not have been enough for the conversation between Ms Hazle and the claimant to have taken place. However that misunderstands the chronology. The meeting with HR Dept at which the advice to speak to the claimant was given was earlier in the morning, and HR Dept’s detailed advice email came later in the morning. In the interim, as she confirmed in crossexamination, Ms Hazle was, following the advice she had received at the earlier meeting, able to meet the claimant and have this conversation. We do not consider there is anything suspicious about it. Furthermore, whether the conversation with the claimant took place in a formal one-to-one that had previously been arranged for that day or in a separate meeting is not of great relevance; the issue is simply whether or not that conversation took place.

[107]Furthermore in a later email of 7 December 2023 to Mr Wynn detailing a call which the claimant had had with Ms Hazle on 7 December 2023, and which we will return to later, Ms Hazle stated that “The last time we touched base re Chetna prior to this week, he [the claimant] had said they got on great and everything was fine”. That further corroborates Ms Hazle’s account of the conversation which she had with the claimant on 26 September 2023.

[108]Furthermore, no further action was taken by the respondent. Again, if following this advice from HR Dept, the claimant had not indicated that there were no further incidents and that everything was fine, or had suggested that there were ongoing problems with Ms Rana, it is inconceivable that Ms Hazle would not have stated this in her email, as there was absolutely no reason for her not to be truthful at that stage and, self-evidently, if she had been untruthful, it would almost certainly all have come out later and she would have had to have - 17 - explained her untruthfulness to Mr Scott and Mr Wynn, with the inevitable risks for her own employment.

[109]Furthermore, the claimant made no further complaint about comments by Ms Rana until December 2023 which, if he did still have ongoing issues with her, is highly surprising.

[110]Furthermore, if Ms Hazle, Mr Wynn and Mr Scott did think that there were ongoing concerns from the claimant in relation to Ms Rana, it is highly surprising that there is no documentation at all in relation to them and indeed that they took no action; taking no action in such circumstances would have been completely inconsistent with the obvious concern which Mr Scott demonstrated in contacting HR Dept and getting advice as soon as Ms Hazle had reported to him the claimant’s original raising of the issue from earlier in the summer.

[111]For these reasons, coupled with our findings regarding the respective reliability of the evidence of the claimant and the respondent’s witnesses, we have no hesitation in concluding that Ms Hazle did have the conversation with the claimant on 26 September 2023 and that what he told her was that there were no issues with Ms Rana, that he was very happy, that he and Ms Rana were working well, and that there had been no further incidents. 5 December 2023

[112]On 5 December 2023, the claimant called Ms Hazle. He was very upset. He said that Ms Rana was doing all the work as quickly as possible and leaving him with nothing to do. He said that Ms Rana was “taking over”. Ms Hazle made a contemporaneous note of this conversation, which she sent to Mr Wynn by email of 7 December 2023, and which reflects this, and we accept that this conversation took place. It was clear to Ms Hazle that the claimant was concerned that Ms Rana would be perceived as amazing and that it would reflect badly on him.

[113]In order to try and even up the work, Ms Hazle “split the dashboard” alphabetically, so that Ms Rana would do income scenarios A-M and the claimant would do N-Z. She confirmed this in an email to the claimant and to Ms Rana on 5 December 2023. 7 December 2023

[114]On Thursday, 7 December 2023, the claimant called Ms Hazle again and they spoke for 1 hour 25 minutes discussing the situation relating to the work split. Ms Hazle sent another contemporaneous email that same day to Mr Wynn which evidences this. That email evidences a number of things. In it, Ms Hazle stated “The last time we touched base re Chetna prior to this week, he [the claimant] had said they got on great and everything was fine”. As noted, that further corroborates the conversation which Ms Hazle had on 26 September 2023 with the claimant. - 18 -

[115]In the 7 December 2023 email, she also stated “Gamine is worried that Chetna is being perceived as being amazing and that he is being perceived as less effective…” and “Gamine has explicitly requested that this is not raised any higher at this stage and that it is not a complaint” and “Gamine has requested that he, Chetna and I have a conversation and the expectations are made clear”. Her email concluded: “Plan: An informal meeting next Wednesday when Chetna is back from her break to discuss appropriate ways to request work and also to ensure all queries are put into the income team chat, with me now being her main point of contact for queries. This will lift that pressure off Gamine who I feel is very stressed by the whole thing. He has told me a couple of times now that “situations like this” are likely to make him unhappy and would be a factor in his leaving the company.” 14 December 2023

[116]No further issues were raised until 14 December 2023. However, on 14 December 2023, Ms Hazle noticed that the claimant seemed very unhappy at their morning catch up, so she called him to discuss this. In that call, he raised several issues. Given the seriousness of some them, Ms Hazle asked her manager, Mr Wynn, to join the call part way through. She summarised the call in a contemporaneous email to Mr Scott on the same day. She began by noting that the claimant had seemed very unhappy that morning and she asked him why, as the dashboard had now been split between him and Ms Rana. Her contemporaneous note goes on: “He seemed very stressed and brought up that Chetna has resumed being unprofessional and potentially makes racist comments, but he just wanted to leave it there. As the issue was far from resolved, I invited Jack to join the conversation which Gamine did not want, but I felt it was necessary to ensure this was handled correctly. Gamine said there was a quiet period for a while when he & Chetna got along fine. The issues around inappropriate comments has recently started again and he said he felt that at some point she would say something very inappropriate to the wrong person and would result in a complaint and her being sacked. He was concerned about seen as causing trouble by raising these issues and has not yet provided details of when and what was said, at least nothing more than the issue he had previously raised a few months ago (which, in a follow up meeting he said had stopped and they were getting on great). He said that these inappropriate comments had also been made to others in the team. Gamine said he has been talking to [Ms X] about the problems he has been having and she advised him to document issues, but he hasn’t done this. Jack asked him to start making notes or please send us anything he has on Teams, so that we had some evidence. He then went on to mention her doing as much work as possible and leaving him nothing to do – which we have addressed with the work split and which we have only been doing properly for a couple of days as Chetna was on holiday the day after we started this and so yesterday was the second day of the new process. Even if the work split works, I don’t know how we can mend the relationship as Gamine is clearly very upset…”

[117]Ms Hazle’s evidence is that the claimant was not specific or clear about what the alleged racist comments were.

[118]Mr Wynn’s evidence was that he was called into that meeting, as detailed by Ms Hazle in her email, but that he found it hard to understand what - 19 - the issues were which the claimant raised. He said that the claimant was speaking in a loud voice and didn’t allow either Ms Hazle or him time to speak; that the claimant raised that Ms Rana was making inappropriate comments, but couldn’t give specific examples; and that he thought that she was doing all the work, which was making him look bad. Mr Wynn confirmed that he asked the claimant to keep notes of the issues, to inform them when the issues occurred and to send them evidence. He also said that he told the claimant that he should put his complaint down in writing (the claimant accepts that Mr Wynn said that to him).

[119]We have no reason to doubt the accounts of Ms Hazle and Mr Wynn, which corroborate each other and are consistent with the contemporaneous email, and we therefore accept them.

[120]Despite the length of the meeting and the fact that the claimant was doing a lot of the talking, he was not specific. Having heard him giving evidence at this tribunal, we can well imagine that that was the case. In these circumstances, it was difficult for Mr Wynn and Ms Hazle to investigate a complaint where the specifics of that complaint were not given; it was therefore entirely reasonable in the circumstances for Mr Wynn to ask the claimant to set out his complaint in writing. Indeed, when the claimant eventually did so (on 30 December 2023), the allegations of the complaint were at least clear and therefore capable of investigation (which is what the respondent then did at that point).

[121]Ms Hazle then discussed the matter with Mr Scott and Mr Wynn. As the claimant had referenced Ms X in the conversation, Ms Hazle spoke to Ms X that same day, 14 December 2023. From her conversation with Ms X, it seemed to her that the main concerns of the claimant related to Ms Rana getting all the work done. She summarised her conversation with Ms X in an email which was sent to Mr Scott that same day. For context, we quote the full email: “14.12.23 11.15am 24 mins I called [Ms X] for a confidential conversation to ask her if she could tell me of any inappropriate comments she had personally had from Chetna. She said nothing really as she doesn’t have much interaction with Chetna and that she would like to get to know her better, but nothing has been directed at her. She wanted to draw her own conclusions rather than just take what Gamine had been saying and give it more time before she came to me. She said the main issue she was aware of was the work and Chetna getting everything done, and doing Gamines work without communicating with him. She thinks Chetna is ambitious and possibly less of a team player because of her keenness to do everything. The emojis Chetna sends when Gamine has done his work have been disappointed face” emjoji’s – or along those lines. I asked her about a particular incident at the Xmas lunch which Gamine had referred to and what was said was “Nigerian foods are ok, not bad at all” or something like that. The context of the conversation was around nut allergies and I assume went on to various nationalities local dishes (I’m guessing as I don’t know how else nut allergies moved to Nigerian food). [Ms X] said she and Tom were a bit surprised by the comment but weren’t offended. [Ms X] thinks Chetna doesn’t mean to come across badly but her delivery isn’t always what it should be. Another example was when she had been on holiday and came back and said she “didn’t like the Spanish”. [Ms X] feels like Chetna needs guidance regarding appropriate office behaviour and etiquette. We have discussed whether [Ms X] could be Chetna’s mentor (which [Ms X] would be keen to do).”

[122]There are a number of points which arise from this conversation. - 20 -

[123]First, Ms X is clear that the main issue as regards the claimant and Ms Rana is the issue of Ms Rana getting all the work done. If, as he maintained in his conversation that day with Ms Hazle and Mr Wynn, the claimant had been talking to Ms X about the problems with Ms Rana, and had explained to her the full extent of the alleged racist (and sexist) comments which at this tribunal he alleges were made, and how offended he now says he was by them, it is very surprising that Ms X would not mention them all, and would conclude that it was the work issue which was the main issue (rather than the offensive comments).

[124]Secondly, the one comment which Ms X references and which forms the basis of one of the allegations before this tribunal is the “didn’t like the Spanish” alleged comment. However, it is the claimant’s case that Ms Rana made this comment to him and that there were no witnesses to it. Ms X did not therefore witness it. Ms X could only have become aware of it if either the claimant or (if the comment was said) Ms Rana told her. The email records Ms X as having told Ms Hazle that no inappropriate comments were directed at her and that she wanted to draw her own conclusions rather than just take what the claimant had been saying. It is clear, therefore, that the reason she is able to reference the Spanish comment is simply because the claimant told her that it was said. She is, therefore, only repeating what the claimant told her. This email is not, therefore, evidence which has any probative value on the issue of whether or not that comment was said in May 2023.

[125]Thirdly, the email refers to a comment allegedly made by Ms Rana at the recent Christmas lunch where she is alleged to have said said “Nigerian foods are okay, not bad at all” or something like that, which we comment on further on below.

[126]Around the same time, Ms Hazle also spoke to another employee called Tom. Her conversation with him is referenced in a further email which Ms Hazle wrote to Mr Scott on 15 December 2023. Again, for the complete context, we quote it in full: “Regarding the racial slurs, Tom and [Ms X] both recall something being said at our team Christmas lunch and both have said they were surprised, neither of them was offended and had put it down to Chetna not thinking before she speaks. [Ms X’s] recollection is slightly different to Toms, and what Tom quoted as having been said is along the lines of “all Nigerians are not that bad”. Neither of them had felt they should mention this to me. This comment was relayed to Gamine as at the time, he was talking to me and neither of us heard it directly. Regarding the work issue, I don’t believe Chetna is rushing and making errors now. There was a time a few months ago when this was the case, and I had a conversation with her and told her to slow down and ensure accuracy and she did. Since then, I have probably seen more (minor) mistakes from Gamine than Chetna, but the overall error rate is low now as they have introduced additional checking procedures. Gamine has been complaining to Tom & [Ms X] about Chetna for a while, it seems. It will be good to discuss with the HR Dept.”

[127]We appreciate that the alleged comments referenced in these emails do not form part of the allegations of this claim. However, Ms Simpson effectively suggests that we should take them into account in determining whether it was - 21 - likely that Ms Rana made the comments which do form the allegations of this claim and, indeed, whether a failure to take any further action in relation to these comments was indicative of an unwillingness on the part of the respondent to investigate allegations of racial or sexual harassment generally. We therefore make some findings in relation to this evidence.

[128]First, it is common ground that the claimant did not himself witness the alleged comment relating to Nigerians or Nigerian food and heard about it only second hand (presumably from either Ms X or Tom). He could not and did not give any evidence as to what was said. Nor did Ms Hazle witness it, so she too could not and did not give any evidence as to what was said. What we therefore have is two differing accounts from two separate employees, which were relayed to Ms Hazle and which she in turn has relayed to the tribunal. It is not even second hand evidence; it is third hand evidence.

[129]Secondly, those accounts were of what happened at a social event at a party at which a number of people were present. The two accounts differ significantly, which is obviously a concern in terms of what if anything to rely on.

[130]Thirdly, both Tom and Ms X did not commit to what they considered was said precisely, but couched their accounts in terms of respectively “along the lines of” and “or something like that”. In determining whether a comment amounts to unlawful harassment or not, the words used and the context they are used in are key, so a lack of clarity about what was said is hugely problematic in making any such determination. In this case, even on their own accounts, neither Tom nor Ms X are committing to giving evidence that that was exactly what was said.

[131]Fourthly, the significance of the difference is that, even on the face of it, what Ms X reported as having been said was unlikely to have been offensive anyway; it amounts simply to the person saying that they quite like Nigerian food. What Tom reported as having been said could of course be something that was offensive. However, it is difficult to draw any conclusion from this evidence as to what was said.

[132]Fifthly, each of Ms X and Tom stated that they were not offended by whatever was said.

[133]Sixthly, and very importantly, Ms Rana, who was at this tribunal to give evidence, was not even asked about these comments. The question of whether or not she made a comment, and if so what, was never even put to her. It would be grossly unfair to make any finding of fact as to what she said at this Christmas lunch when the allegation was not even put to her, notwithstanding that she was at the tribunal and cross-examined at length about other matters.

[134]We therefore make no finding about what, if anything, was said by Ms Rana at this lunch. That evidence is not, therefore, evidence from which we can or do draw any inferences in deciding whether the allegedly racist and sexist comments which form the allegations under this claim were made or not. - 22 -

[135]As already noted, Ms Hazle updated Mr Scott on the situation in her email of 15 December 2023. She concluded “It will be good to discuss with the HR Dept”. Mr Scott duly took advice from HR Dept that very day. HR Dept gave advice both in relation to the work situation and to the issue regarding the comments, as is evident from HR Dept email to Mr Scott, Mr Wynn and Ms Hazle of 15 December 2023. The paragraph regarding the comments reads: “With regards to the concerns raised about comments allegedly made by Chetna, we have agreed that at the moment this will not be raised. Gamine was unable to confirm what had been said, and it was unclear still following a conversation with other employees. Gamine will be asked to raise any further issues that arise at the time with Eve, and then any further action can be decided on if necessary.

[136]Ms Simpson has submitted that this indicates a failure on the part of the respondent to take the complaints seriously. However, we disagree. Despite a lengthy meeting with Ms Hazle and Mr Wynn, the claimant had been unable (or unwilling) to set out what the alleged comments were, to enable the respondent to carry out an investigation. For example, if they were going to be able sensibly to interview Ms Rana and ask her if she had made certain comments, they needed to have at least some idea of what those comments were which she had allegedly made. They did not have this information at this point from the claimant (with the exception of the “they are all up themselves” allegation communicated to Ms Hazle several months earlier in the summer). We do not, therefore, consider that the HR Dept advice was unreasonable and we certainly do not consider that the decision of Mr Scott to follow that advice was in any way indicative of an unwillingness on the part of any of the respondents to investigate or to take complaints seriously. 19 December 2023

[137]On 19 December 2023, the claimant spoke to Ms Hazle again. This was another lengthy conversation (about half an hour).

[138]During that conversation, the claimant told Ms Hazle that he wished now to make a formal complaint. Ms Hazle told him that she would inform Mr Wynn and Mr Scott of that.

[139]Ms Hazle then sent an email on 19 December 2023 to Mr Scott and Mr Wynn summarising the conversation. The only alleged comment that is referenced in that email is where Ms Hazle records “He wishes to raise that she insulted his wife a few months ago by saying she doesn’t like people of that religion”. This therefore appears to be a reference to the original matter which he raised in the summer of 2023 (although, according to Ms Hazle’s email, that was not in quite the same terms as he raised it in his conversation with her on 19 December 2023). Ms Hazle’s email does not record any other comments which the claimant, in his conversation of 19 December 2023 with her, alleged Ms Rana to have made. The emails which Ms Hazle wrote, many of which we have seen in the bundle, are detailed. We do not think that it is likely that, if other comments had been alleged by the claimant at that meeting to have been made, Ms Hazle would have failed to include them in her email. We therefore conclude that the - 23 - only comment raised by the claimant in that conversation was the single comment referenced above. 20 December 2023

[140]Mr Scott then took further advice from HR Dept. Based on that advice, he emailed the claimant on 20 December 2023 and asked him to set out the nature of his complaint in writing. His email stated: “Eve has brought to my attention that you would like to make a formal complaint against another employee. Please can you put down in writing the nature of the complaint and I will investigate.”

[141]Again, contrary to the claimant’s assertions, there was no hesitation or unwillingness to investigate the claimant’s complaints. However, because of the lack of clarity from the claimant up until that point, Mr Scott quite reasonably wanted the claimant to set out the nature of the complaint so that he could investigate it properly. 21 December 2023

[142]On 21 December 2023, the claimant called Ms Hazle again. He was furious about Ms Rana in relation to a particular work task. He launched a tirade of anger at Ms Hazle about Ms Rana, such that Ms Hazle had to take her laptop into a separate office and ask Mr Wynn to join the call, because the claimant was angry and was not allowing her any opportunity to reply. In that call, the claimant said that now that the workload was split, he had too much work to do and couldn’t concentrate on “improvements” (which surprised Ms Hazle as that was not something that there should have been much of at that point). Ms Hazle reminded the claimant that his role first and foremost was the processing of the daily income. The claimant was very aggressive and unprofessional in his conduct towards Ms Hazle on this call. However, she remained calm to allow him to vent because she was concerned about the claimant’s mental state as his behaviour was so rude.

[143]After the call, Ms Hazle emailed Mr Scott and Mr Wynn summarising the call. We set out that email below in full. It is consistent with the account which Ms Hazle gave to the tribunal and which is set out in the paragraph above and we accept that account. It is also striking that, although a lot of matters were covered in that call, as is evident from the contents of the email below, the vast majority of it is about the work issues involving the claimant and Ms Rana; there is no mention of the alleged racist comments from the claimant and the only reference to them is towards the end when Mr Wynn reminds the claimant that he needs to get his complaints down in writing. This is further indicative that what was really bothering the claimant at the time was his antagonism towards Ms Rana regarding work issues, rather than any comments which she may have made. The email is as follows. “9.45 am 21.12.23 Was in the office so grabbed Jack to come into the meeting room as this is getting too much. - 24 - Gamine wanted to speak to me today because he was under the impression that Chetna would do all of his CREST numbers from yesterday onwards (I was too, but I assume I was not clear enough with her). When he checked to see if these were done, he found that she had only done hers. He was furious because it now means he has to do his and he says he stayed until 6.45pm last night to add them (not checked this). He accused me of sticking up for her when I tried to explain to him there could be a reason why she had not done his – I was not given a chance to ask her as this then went on to Gamine talking and not allowing me to speak. During the conversation, he again said I was sticking up for her and I explained that if anyone made the same accusations about him (re work), I would take the same stance and pose potential logical reasons as to why something may not have been done, until I had found out the truth of the matter. He seems enraged because we are not falling down on “his side” without question. Regarding his accusation that I have not acted, I disagree because as soon as he raised the issue with her doing all of the work and leaving him with nothing, I split the dashboard in half and took Chetna on as my trainee rather than him training her. He then questioned her role, as he thought she was here to do the Group 2’s and Crest numbers and generally anything he doesn’t want to do so that he can work on developments etc. However, he had previously said she was doing too much of the daily work and not leaving him with anything to do so it is altogether unclear; does he want her to do all of the work to leave him free to work on process improvements or share the work equally? Chetna is very bright and ambitious and needs development as she has so much to learn. Gamine asked what about his development, but currently, at Christmas, nothing can really happen as he is off next week anyway. But I didn’t really get a chance to respond before he cut me off and continued talking over me. As an aside, this has been a busy period, so Gamine should not be taking time out to work on system improvements and if he does wish to do that, it should be in conjunction with the Change Team and agreed with me, so that I can ensure the daily work is being done and monitor this. I can’t just accept him stepping away from the daily work without knowing what he is doing; he could be sitting watching TV all day for all I know if there is nothing agreed and monitored. Jack reminded Gamine that he needs to get his complaints down in writing for Mike Scott as requested and told Gamine that since the first report of a racist slur this has been taken to the HR team, and treated very seriously. Reminded Gamine that he had not wished to proceed with a formal complaint at that time regarding the racial slurs. I had advised Gamine this morning when he told me he was putting his complaint together that it was unlikely that there would be any action taken before new year.” 30 December 2023 - the claimant’s written complaint

[144]The claimant was on holiday between Christmas 2023 and New Year. His evidence is that he put together his written complaint at some point over that period. He submitted his written complaint on 30 December 2023.

[145]We set out below the bulk of the written complaint in full. We do so because it is noteworthy that several of the complaints set out in it have been expanded upon from what was set out in the 30 December 2023 complaint to what is set out in the claim and his witness statement.

[146]Furthermore, and strikingly, the written complaint does not contain the allegation that Ms Rana said to the claimant “Sri Lankan people are normally so dark, but you’re not. You must be the only one. Do you use “fair and lovely” (a skin bleaching brand?” and laughed”. That is highly surprising if that comment was made, particularly as one might have thought that such a comment would have been likely to be one of the most offensive of the comments allegedly made. Furthermore, it is not as if the claimant had to put his grievance together in - 25 - a hurried manner; he had plenty of time over the Christmas period to think carefully about his grievance; although in his covering email submitting the grievance he states “The attached are just a few examples”, it is nonetheless scarcely credible that he would not only omit to include such an obvious example as this in his written grievance and indeed not refer to it at any stage during the subsequent internal process, if indeed it had actually happened.

[147]In addition, the alleged “sugar daddy” comment, which has since gone on to be the basis of the allegations of sexual harassment in this claim, was not set out in the set of six numbered alleged comments in the written complaint but was only referenced generally in a paragraph later in that complaint in amongst various other criticisms the claimant was making and, even then, is not expressed to be something that was directed at him (as he now claims in his claim that it was).

[148]The claimant’s 30 December 2024 written complaint is as follows: “Since the very beginning of her employment at Third Financial, Chetna Rana has made numerous inappropriate comments to me which have made me feel deeply uncomfortable. I reported some of the comments a few months ago to Eve. The situation seemingly improved brieﬂy before the inappropriate comments began again. In all instances I have chosen not to react and have remained professional throughout. Comments/conversations include: 1) CR: I went to Tenerife GW: How was it? Did you have a good time? CR: Yeah it was nice but I didn’t like the Spanish people. She was in the oﬃce at the time and I was working from home. I didn’t press her further as this was only the second or third time I had spoken to Chetna and didn’t know her very well. I quickly changed the subject. 2) CR: I hate Gujarati’s and Punjabi’s GW: You can’t say things like that, your generalising, that’s such a sweeping statement. You know my wife is Gujarati right? CR: I don’t care, I hate Gujarati’s. From my experience they think they’re all that. I don’t like their food or the people. This conversation was not light-hearted in anyway or could be considered as banter, she was wholly serious about her hate for my wife’s heritage. I considered the remarks racist at the time and having subsequently spoken to my wife and in-laws they consider the remarks racist and akin to an English person saying they genuinely hate the Scottish or vice versa. 3) After a trip to Budapest GW: How was Budapest? CR: It was ok but I didn’t like the people. All the men there are such perverts there honestly. GW: You cannot say that, even if you received one inappropriate comment, you can’t generalise like that, it’s oﬀensive. 4) Whilst in the oﬃce in November CR: I hate this f*****g country honestly GW: You’re surrounded by people that were born and bred in this country. Don’t you think it’s a little disrespectful? Imagine if you were in India and you overheard the same, wouldn’t you feel oﬀended? - 26 - CR: Oh yeah, you’re right you know. I also turned oﬀ my camera in Teams as I didn’t want to be associated with her comments. To which she replied, “Wow I can’t believe you actually turned oﬀ your camera”. 5) There have been far too many occasions for me to count where she has yelled out “bulls**t” when I am simply training her how to do a particular process on Teams. I ﬁnd it both strange and disrespectful, we are colleagues not friends. It’s not encouraged, it is abrupt and it comes out of the blue whilst I am simply trying to train her in a polite and professional manner. This is something that happened a lot in the ﬁrst 3 months and then subsided, but it began again in October. [Ms X] once overheard her in the past saying “bulls**t” to me and when we later spoke about it, [Ms X] had wrongly assumed Chetna and I had that kind of relationship. 6) A couple of months ago, whilst in the oﬃce, I asked her to stop processing dividends so that [Ms X] or I could send our “End of day” email which we send to Jack and Greg. I had to ask her several times and she lashed out by saying “wait a f**king minute”. There have been multiple incidents like this. Even after I reported the ‘bulls**t’ comments to Eve a few months ago there has been no change in the language she uses towards me. She has sworn at me on multiple occasions, mostly during conversations/training on Teams but there have also been a couple of occasions where this has taken place in the oﬃce, this being one of them. In the afternoon, when I am working from home, I must constantly remind her to refrain from using that language as my eldest child (aged 7) is at home. I ﬁnd her to be very unprofessional. She has disclosed her salary to me unprompted and almost daily complains about her salary to me. She often talks about how she wants a Sugar Daddy. I have found it diﬃcult to work with Chetna as she has no ﬁlter and doesn’t respect my boundaries, even when she has been ﬁrmly told to stop speaking about matters that don’t relate to work. On 18/12/2023 when I went to screenshot some of her past Microsoft Teams messages to me, I noticed that some of them had been deleted by her. Over the course of the past month or so I have shown some of the messages I have received from Chetna to [Ms X], Tom, John, and Eve prior to them being deleted. I’ve lost count of how many times I have attempted to encourage her to act more professional. I thought speaking to her in a professional manner would compel her to speak to me in the same way. However, she has asked me to stop being so formal with her…”

[149]As we have already found, the claimant only informed Ms Hazle in the summer of 2023 of one alleged comment. He did not inform her of “some of the comments a few months ago” as he states in his written complaint. Nor did he inform her of the “bulls**t” comments, as he alleges in his written complaint.

[150]During the course of the investigation, Mr Scott did look into the allegation about deleted messages. He was able to recover all messages on the system, whether they had been deleted or otherwise. However, nothing was ever identified which cast any light on whether the comments which are the subject of this claim were made or not. The references to deleted messages are, therefore, red herrings. Indeed, it is not disputed by the claimant, on his own case, that the comments which form the subject of this claim and which he alleges that Ms Rana made were made orally and were not witnessed by anyone else.

[151]On 2 January 2024, Mr Scott acknowledged receipt of the claimant’s complaint and also sought further advice from HR Dept. He then emailed the claimant. In his email, he stated: - 27 - “To aid with the investigation, it would be helpful to understand the resolution you are seeking. Can you please outline what you would like the outcome of this process to be?”

[152]On 3 January 2024, the claimant replied: “I raised my concerns about Chetna many months ago. I feel that when these concerns were originally raised, the remarks made were certainly worthy of dismissal. Sadly, her unprofessional behaviour has persisted if not worsened. As there has been no improvement, this may be the best course of action.” The claimant was, therefore, unequivocally seeking to have Ms Rana dismissed.

[153]Even in this email, however, the claimant focuses on “unprofessional behaviour” rather than, as one might expect in the light of subsequent events and the serious allegations brought at this tribunal, on serious racist and sexist harassment. This is further indicative that what bothered him at that time were work issues vis-à-vis himself and Ms Rana, rather than alleged racist and sexist comments by Ms Rana. 5 January 2024 investigation meeting

[154]Mr Scott held an investigation meeting with the claimant on 5 January 2024.

[155]Mr Wynn was present and took notes; he said very little at the meeting. The claimant in his evidence has suggested that Mr Wynn had a much greater role in the meeting but we do not accept that; both Mr Scott and Mr Wynn said Mr Wynn was there as a notetaker and, as we found, we have no reason to doubt the reliability of their evidence, but have serious concerns about the reliability of the evidence of the claimant.

[156]The meeting lasted by all accounts over half an hour. Mr Wynn’s notes are brief (they are just over a side long) and are effectively a bullet point summary of the meeting rather than being verbatim notes. Ms Simpson suggests that their length, in the context of the length of the meeting, indicates that they are not accurate (and it is the claimant’s case that they are not accurate, albeit typically the claimant does not go into details as to in what respects he says they are not accurate). However, we disagree; the length of the notes and the fact that they are clearly a summary of points rather than verbatim is not an indication that they do not set out the key points that were made at the meeting or set them out accurately.

[157]Furthermore, as we have already indicated, the claimant produced his own notes of the meeting. These are seven pages long and read as if they are a transcript of a recording rather than notes made at a meeting; however, at this tribunal the claimant admitted that he had not recorded this meeting nor had he taken contemporaneous notes, but that he produced his notes in June 2024, some five months after the meeting. For that reason alone, we are sceptical that he could accurately remember many details of what was said at the meeting, let - 28 - alone with the precision that the way these notes are set out suggests that he purports to have been able to do.

[158]In addition, and in contrast to the claimant, Mr Scott and Mr Wynn gave evidence of several areas in the claimant’s notes of things allegedly said which could not and/or did not happen at the meeting.

[159]In his notes, the claimant made reference to Mr Wynn having said at the meeting that he discussed the claimant’s complaint with Ms Hazle at the time when the claimant raised it with Ms Hazle in summer 2023, and to Mr Scott having said that action was taken in July 2023 and to Mr Wynn saying “I’m not able to say what we did in July as that needs to remain confidential”. However, Mr Wynn and Mr Scott were unaware of the complaint in summer 2023. Not only were they not told about the complaint in summer 2023, but it is not even the claimant’s case at this tribunal that they were. Mr Wynn and Mr Scott could not, therefore, have plausibly said these things at the 5 January 2024 meeting.

[160]The claimant’s notes have Mr Scott and Mr Wynn saying things which are inherently unlikely in the context of a first investigatory meeting, particularly for individuals who clearly took their responsibilities seriously and took HR advice at every stage. For example, he suggests that Mr Scott said “we just don’t know how she’s [Ms Rana] going to react and we don’t want anything to flare up, particularly in the office”. It is inherently implausible that the respondent’s Chief Financial Officer, having taken HR advice and having embarked upon an investigation, would say something like that.

[161]Furthermore, the claimant’s notes go into detail about matters which are inherently unlikely to have happened in the context of a first investigatory meeting, the purpose of which was to enable him to give detail and context to allegations which he had already set out in writing.

[162]There is a passage where the claimant has himself going into what is a little speech about the nature of racism and lessons learnt from the Black Lives Matter movement, which does not ring true.

[163]Furthermore, he goes into enormous detail about passages where he allegedly talked about the “sugar daddy” comment. By contrast, Mr Scott and Mr Wynn’s evidence is that he never brought that up at the meeting itself and Mr Scott never raised it, perhaps unsurprisingly, because it was not one of the six allegations set out in the claimant’s written complaint, but only a passing reference in an ancillary paragraph that was not even expressed as a comment made about or in respect of the claimant. That it was not mentioned at the meeting is reflected in Mr Wynn’s notes, in which there is no reference to the “sugar daddy” comment.

[164]Those comments read as if they were constructed by someone who, following his dismissal, had looked up or been advised on sex discrimination law and sought to make a case retrospectively out of that alleged comment. - 29 -

[165]Finally, there are large passages in the claimant’s notes focusing on the fact that the respondent has an outsourced HR provider and making criticisms of failures in training etc; that again looks reflective of someone who has, after the event, become more aware of employment law and is seeking to set out matters to assist in building a case, rather than what would be likely to have occurred in an investigatory meeting, which was focusing on the comments themselves which are the subject of the complaint.

[166]For all these reasons, we consider that the claimant’s notes, produced several months after the meeting, were fabricated by him well after the event and contain numerous passages which reference things which simply were not said at the meeting. By contrast, we accept that Mr Wynn’s notes, albeit brief, are an accurate summary of what happened at the meeting.

[167]In terms of what happened at the meeting, Mr Wynn gave evidence that the claimant appeared distressed while he was relaying the points of his complaint and that they didn’t make coherent sense. Mr Scott said that the claimant acted very strangely at the meeting and he never got to the point; he would continually go off on tangents that seemed wholly unrelated to the allegations. These accounts reflect how the claimant presented at this tribunal, never getting to the point and frequently going off on tangents. We therefore do not have any hesitation in accepting the evidence of Mr Scott and Mr Wynn that that was exactly how the claimant was at this meeting.

[168]The fact that the claimant kept going off on tangents is another reason why, although Mr Scott tried to address all the complaints in his written complaint with him, there is little detail in the notes about them; because the claimant could not or would not get to the point.

[169]Mr Wynn’s notes of the meeting record that, in relation to the alleged Spanish comment, the claimant stated that Ms Rana said about Spain that “I liked it, but didn’t like the people”. There are references in the notes to the “Bull sh**t” and “Give me a fucking minute” comments and the Gujarati comment (which must be the comment referenced in the line which states “regarding the comment re race, this was 2/3 weeks before raising it to Eve Hazle”), but not to all the others. However, we accept Mr Scott’s evidence that he had the written complaint and he was giving the claimant the opportunity at this meeting to give more details about each of the complaints that he had made in that written complaint. However, the claimant did not do so. This is reflected in Mr Wynn’s notes which state “MS asked GW for more specifics, for dates of the specific allegations he had made, and if there were any witnesses to these allegations. GW was unable to provide specific information on dates regarding the exact times of the incidents, and said that no one had witnessed the incidents”. In short, we consider that Mr Scott gave the claimant every opportunity to give details of the complaints he had made, but he was unable or unwilling to do so.

[170]Furthermore, it is unusual that racially harassing and sexually harassing comments are simply made out of the blue with no or limited context to them. The inability or unwillingness of the claimant to give more context in relation to - 30 - his own alleged complaints is one factor which casts doubt as to the likelihood of them having been made.

[171]The claimant did not mention the “fair and lovely” comment at this meeting either. That did not appear until the claim itself.

[172]The claimant has alleged at this tribunal that the meeting was cut short and he was not given the opportunity to give further details. Again, we have rejected Ms Simpson’s argument that the fact that the meeting notes are short indicates that the meeting itself must have been short or cut short; furthermore, we have also rejected the claimant’s assertion that his own notes, which have Mr Scott at one point telling him “we have limited time” and Mr Wynn close to the end stating “I’m sorry Gamine but we are running out of time, I think we have what we need for now”, were an accurate reflection of the meeting.

[173]By contrast, we accept Mr Scott’s evidence that there was plenty of time at the meeting, particularly as this was very early in the year and the business was not particularly busy by that point, so the managers really didn’t have other things that they needed to rush off to attend to; and that not only was the meeting not cut short by either Mr Scott or Mr Wynn, but that the claimant was given as much time as he wanted to give details about his complaints. 17 January 2024 - meeting with Ms Rana

[174]Mr Scott then met Ms Rana on 17 January 2024. Again, Mr Wynn was also present and took notes. The meeting lasted about 30 minutes. Mr Wynn’s notes of that meeting are similarly brief and are not verbatim. That is consistent with the approach he took in relation to the previous meeting with the claimant. Again, we have no reason to doubt that the notes, albeit brief, are accurate, and we accept that they are.

[175]At the meeting, Mr Scott went through all of the six allegations set out as numbered points 1-6 in the claimant’s written complaint. Ms Rana denied that she had said anything discriminatory. Some of the comments she denied having said at all. Others she gave context to. For example, the notes record her as having said in relation to the Spanish allegation “I love Spain but did not like Spanish food” and that she “specifically said she does not like Paella as she doesn’t like sea food. She has no reason not to like Spanish people”. She denied making the “Gujarati comment” which the claimant had alleged. She explained that there was a conversation, which was instigated by the claimant, and commented that she knew that the claimant’s in-laws were Gujarati, but that she had said nothing bad against them.

[176]The explanations regarding the comments which Ms Rana gave in her witness statement were in some respects fuller than what is recorded in Mr Wynn’s notes. However, that is unsurprising; Mr Wynn’s notes are brief and we do not know exactly how the comments were put to her and, of course, this was the first time that these comments were put to her, out of the blue; and, on the claimant’s case, they were comments which were allegedly made in most cases many months previously. In those circumstances, it may well not have been - 31 - immediately clear to Ms Rana from which of the many conversations which she had previously had with her co-worker the claimant some of these alleged comments were alleged to have derived; that would be even more the case if, as per Ms Rana’s case, what the claimant was alleging that she said was often only tangentially related to what was actually said in the context within which it was said. Importantly, however, the explanations and context given in her witness statement are not inconsistent with the answers she gave at the meeting of 17 January 2024 which are set out in Mr Wynn’s notes.

[177]Mr Scott did not raise the “sugar daddy” comment with her. Again, this was because he did not think that the claimant was complaining about this remark in his 30 December 2023 complaint, given where it was contained in that complaint, and that Mr Scott (entirely reasonably) thought that the claimant made that statement as context to Ms Rana’s alleged “unprofessionalism”, as opposed to a self-standing complaint. In addition, as noted, the claimant’s written complaint did not suggest that the comment was made to him or about him, as he now alleges as part of this claim.

[178]During the meeting, Ms Rana stated that the complaint submitted by the claimant could have come from the claimant feeling threatened by Ms Rana as he felt she was doing some of his work. From the evidence of the December 2023 emails which we have seen, it is not surprising that Ms Rana came to that conclusion and we accept that she genuinely did believe that.

[179]Throughout the meeting, Ms Rana was in tears and was clearly very upset that these allegations had been made against her. She became more upset as Mr Scott read out each complaint. Mr Scott himself clearly found the meeting very difficult and the impact that it was having on Ms Rana hard to watch. When he was being cross-examined about this meeting at this tribunal, he became tearful when recollecting the meeting and how awful it was.

[180]As the meeting progressed, Mr Scott became more convinced that Ms Rana had not said the comments as alleged. Further investigations

[181]Mr Scott then carried out some further investigations. First, he spoke to 3 individuals who, in terms of office location, sat near Ms Rana and who might therefore have overheard the comments which were the subject of the claimant’s allegations or something similar. He was very candid that he did not want this to become the subject of office gossip and therefore he chose three individuals whom, although they sat near to where Ms Rana sat, he knew were people who would be discreet and not gossip further about the questions which he asked them about this matter. None of the three individuals were able to confirm that Ms Rana had said anything of the nature of the comments which she was alleged by the claimant to have said. Mr Scott did not take notes of these enquiries. However, we have no reason to doubt his evidence that he did speak to these individuals as set out above, and we accept it. - 32 -

[182]Mr Scott also asked the respondent’s internal IT to provide him with Teams messages and emails between the claimant and Ms Rana. He then reviewed them for evidence of the alleged comments, but could not see any evidence relating to them. What he could see when he did this review was that throughout the period of time he looked at, the two of them appeared to have been quite friendly and worked closely together, until a deterioration around late 2023.

[183]Mr Scott also spoke to Ms Hazle. He did not consider that he needed to speak to “Ms X, Tom and John”, who been identified in the claimant’s complaint as being persons to whom the claimant said he had shown “some of the messages he had received from [Ms Rana]”, as Ms Hazle had spoken to Ms X and Tom (as identified in some of the emails quoted above) and he took Ms Hazle’s word for it. In any event, the allegations made by the claimant were of comments made orally to him by Ms Rana (not written comments) and there was no suggestion that any of these individuals had witnessed the alleged comments being made. Furthermore, as noted, Mr Scott did not want the matter to become the subject of office gossip and he considered that, given that he did not think it was necessary to speak to these individuals, he should not do so given the risk of widening the scope of those who knew about these serious allegations, which might therefore increase the risk of confidentiality being broken and the matter being gossiped about. Therefore, whilst it might have been better for the sake of completeness had he spoken to those individuals as well, we do not consider in the circumstances that it was unreasonable for him not to have done so. We certainly do not consider that his not doing so was for any other reason than the fact that he did not think that it was necessary and that, out of concerns for confidentiality, he wanted to limit the numbers of people who became aware of the allegations. Notification of complaint by Ms Y

[184]As already noted, on 26 January 2024, a female employee of the respondent from a different part of the business to the Corporate Actions Team (Ms Y) approached Mr Scott and told him that she wanted to make a complaint, but she did not at that point give Mr Scott any details of that complaint nor did she tell him about whom she wished to complain. 29 January 2024 - grievance outcome

[185]Having completed his investigation into the claimant’s complaint, Mr Scott did not uphold it. He confirmed this to the claimant in writing on 29 January 2024. The decision was his, and his alone. That is his evidence and we have no reason to doubt it.

[186]In light of the lack of any corroborating evidence, the decision not to uphold the claimant’s grievance was not an unreasonable decision to reach.

[187]In his evidence before the tribunal, Mr Scott was asked whether at that stage he thought that the claimant merely hadn’t proved this case on the balance of probabilities or thought that the claimant had made up the allegations. He said - 33 - that at that point he was of the view that the majority of the complaints were fictitious and that he did not believe the claimant. We accept that that was his view at the time. Furthermore, he gave evidence that his opinion in this respect has not changed since then, and we accept that that is the case.

[188]Mr Scott even felt the need to set out in his outcome letter of 29 January 2024 that, due to the evidence available, he would not be proceeding with any disciplinary process with Ms Rana; presumably, he did this in light of the claimant’s clearly stated desired outcome of the grievance process that Ms Rana should be dismissed.

[189]In his outcome letter, Mr Scott also suggested mediation between the claimant and Ms Rana; however, the claimant confirmed that he did not wish to enter into any mediation as he felt that he would not benefit from that.

[190]The outcome letter also offered the claimant a right of appeal against Mr Scott’s decision; however, the claimant did not submit any appeal against that decision.

[191]It appears that even at the time the claimant found Mr Scott’s decision understandable. In a text message to his wife the same day, he wrote: “Hi hun so Chetna denied everything so my complaint has not been upheld… What I expected really but they have asked if I would be willing to enter into voluntary mediation which I absolutely would not…”. That is a surprisingly mild reaction to the turning down of a complaint of serious allegations of racial harassment which the claimant, at this tribunal, not only claims occurred but also claims caused him the utmost personal offence.

[192]The following day, 30 January 2024, the claimant emailed Mr Scott, thanking him for sending the outcome of his complaint, and stating: “The allegations made were always going to be difficult for me to prove as the majority of what was alleged took place in unrecorded video calls over Microsoft Teams. I of course firmly stand by what was alleged.”. Again, the claimant’s own email is indicative that he himself thought that such allegations would be difficult to prove and that, by implication, Mr Scott’s decision that they had not been proved was an understandable and a reasonable one. The sale of the respondent

[193]As referenced earlier, around that time, there were ongoing negotiations for the sale of the respondent to a larger organisation. Mr Partington, the CEO, led on those negotiations. Mr Partington stood to make a lot of money in the event that the deal went through. As already noted, a contract for sale was ultimately signed on 8 February 2024. However, negotiations had gone on previously and it had been expected that the contract for sale would have been signed towards the end of 2023. However, there had been some issues then which prevented that from happening. Mr Partington was very keen to ensure that the contract was signed and was very concerned to manage any issues which arose which might in any way hinder the deal from completing. One concern which had been raised was whether or not the respondent had sufficient - 34 - employees to deal with the volumes with which it had to deal. Therefore, a loss of an employee might be something which could cause an issue which might impact upon the smooth negotiation of the sale of the respondent, particularly if the employee in question was a high performer who in terms of output processed large volumes of work. This evidence came from Mr Scott in cross-examination and, as we have no reason to doubt it, we accept it.

[194]Mr Partington had not had any role in dealing with the claimant’s grievance. However, Mr Scott had kept him informed of the progress of that grievance. Performance data

[195]On 31 January 2024, Mr Scott sent the following email to Ms Hazle and Mr Wynn: “Both We’re looking at the matter we have been discussing and it would be helpful if we could gather together any evidence either shared with the individual, or about the individual shared between yourselves / Greg / me / any other relevant person that shows evidence on their performance. I.e. have we ever raised concerns about their performance in an email / teams chat / meeting with them? What did their annual review in December say? Have we ever raised concerns about their performance privately amongst ourselves in email or teams chats?”

[196]Ms Hazle replied the same day: “Both had good reviews as I was quite happy with how things were going at the start of December. I didn’t have had issues regarding their performance. Chetna has picked things up extremely quickly and is very keen. I thought Gamine’s work was ﬁne too, until I pulled out the stats… I have never done delved into who has been doing what particularly using Tercero to extract the info, so I have done this today. I have extracted the number of income items processed between 30.06.23 and 30.11.23, stats are as follows: Chetna: Total Processed: 2157: 225 accumulations, 1867 Cash Dividends, 65 Interest Payments Gamine: Total Processed : 689: – 17 accumulations, 536 divs / 136 interest (Eve: Total Processed : 891 : – 353 accumulations, 493 divs / 48 interest) – mine should have been mainly when I have been covering holiday or helping at month end. It is possible Gamine was oﬀ over a month end which is when my stats would be higher, but that’s still 1029 dividends for Gamine and me together against Chetna’s 1867. I’ve double checked and these do seem to be correct, although I am astonished. Since the dashboard split, and excluding the Christmas period when Gamine was oﬀ (so approx. 17.12.23 – 22.12.23 and then 01.01.24 to 29.01.24): Chetna: 42 Gamine: 58 - 35 - This is a far more realistic. I was so surprised at these numbers that I ran it again and maybe my dates were slightly diﬀerent, but the results hadn’t changed much. Happy if someone can check these numbers as I can’t quite believe them.”

[197]Ms Hazle gave evidence that, in the light of the potential upcoming sale of the respondent, she had been asked to look at data in relation to the team generally and she pulled the statistics out accordingly; her belief that that is was what she was tasked to do is reflected in the data which she produced, which relates to both the claimant, Ms Rana and, indeed herself.

[198]The judge asked Mr Scott about these emails. Mr Scott quite candidly stated that the reference to “the individual” in his email to Ms Hazle was not a reference to individual employees generally (i.e. both the claimant and Ms Rana) but was a reference specifically to the claimant and the claimant alone; and that, in fact, Ms Hazle provided him with data for both employees (and herself), rather than just for the claimant, which was what he intended to ask for in his email to her.

[199]Mr Scott said that the request for the output data in relation to the claimant came from Mr Partington. Again, we have no reason to doubt Mr Scott’s evidence and we accept it.

[200]The judge then asked Mr Scott why Mr Partington had asked him for this data. Mr Scott candidly said that he did not know. He noted that, at this stage, Mr Partington’s primary focus and concern was to ensure that the sale of the respondent went through, and he speculated that Mr Partington, who knew about the problematic working relationship between the claimant and Ms Rana, including the fact that the claimant had raised a grievance which had, only two days previously, not been upheld by Mr Scott, had concerns about the claimant and therefore sought information regarding his output. However, he was candid that this was just an assumption on his part and that he did not know the reason why Mr Partington sought this information.

[201]We return later to the reason for Mr Partington’s request in our conclusions on the issues. 2 February 2024 - Ms Y’s complaint about the claimant

[202]On 2 February 2024, Mr Scott met Ms Y and she told him the details of her complaint. She told him that she had received unwanted attention from the claimant. They had a meeting that day in which Ms Y described each of their interactions. We do not need to set out all of the interactions she described, save to note that there are many of them. Mr Scott took a note at that meeting, which was in the bundle. Again, it is a summary of the conversation and not a verbatim note. However, we have no reason to doubt its accuracy, all the more so as the claimant subsequently confirmed that several of these interactions did in fact take place (although he denied that they amounted to harassing behaviour on his - 36 - part); we therefore accept that the contents of the note were an accurate account of what Ms Y told Mr Scott.

[203]Ms Y variously described the claimant’s behaviour as making her feel “uncomfortable”, as “aggressive”, and as “creepy”; she described how he would “at times follow her into the kitchen” and “would also pester her on teams”; that he was “clearly trying to flirt with her”; and that his behaviour was “uncomfortable and weird” and “really weird and aggressive behaviour making her feel uncomfortable”.

[204]Ms Y is employed in a different department from the claimant, but was based in the same office as the claimant. As they worked in different departments, there was no need for any interaction between them (either in person or by Microsoft Teams) in order to complete their respective workloads or duties.

[205]Mr Scott gave evidence that Ms Y was not aware of the complaint raised by the claimant against Ms Rana at the time she made her own complaint against the claimant. The judge asked him how he could be sure of that. Mr Scott said that he could not be 100% sure but that he had no reason to believe that Ms Y would have known about it, given the confidentiality that attached to that complaint. As already noted, Mr Scott had been particularly keen to ensure confidentiality about the details of the complaint raised by the claimant in relation to Ms Rana, not least of all because of his concerns about the matter becoming a subject of office gossip. We therefore agree that there is no reason why Ms Y would have known about that complaint: furthermore, there is no evidence that she knew about that complaint. We therefore accept that, at the time Ms Y made her complaint, she did not know about the complaint made by the claimant about Ms Rana. The claimant’s conspiracy theory

[206]At this point, we feel we need to address the conspiracy theory advanced by Ms Simpson on the claimant’s behalf. Ms Simpson notes the relatively short period of time between the outcome of the claimant’s grievance on 29 January 2024, the request for output data in relation to the claimant on 31 January 2024 and Ms Y’s complaint, the details of which she provided to Mr Scott on 2 February 2024. Ms Simpson submits that, following the grievance, there was a conspiracy to dismiss the claimant that took its form firstly in reviewing the performance data in relation to him and secondly in advancing Ms Y’s complaint against him with a view to dismissing him. She specifically submits that it was Mr Scott who approached Ms Y to persuade her to raise a complaint against the claimant rather than Ms Y approaching Mr Scott of her own volition to do so. The conspiracy is said to include not only Mr Scott but also Ms Hazle, Mr Wynn and, presumably in the light of the evidence, Mr Partington; furthermore, it is also likely by extension to include Ms Y herself, if she agreed following a request by Mr Scott, to bring a complaint about the claimant.

[207]In making this assertion, Ms Simpson focuses on the fact that the last of the messages which were in the bundle between the claimant and Ms Y dated - 37 - from September 2023. However, there is nothing to suggest that what has been being produced for the bundle represents the totality of the messages between them and, furthermore, the extensive account of the interactions between Ms Y and the claimant which Ms Y referred to in her complaint covers many matters which would not be reflected in written messages. Furthermore, even if there was a delay between the incidents about which Ms Y complains and the point at which she raised these matters with Mr Scott (and we make no finding to that effect), we do not draw any conclusions from such a delay; choosing to make complaints of harassment to one’s employer is frequently a very difficult thing to do and it is not uncommon for employees to delay before they feel they are able to raise such a complaint.

[208]Secondly, she points to some written messages which indicate that, at one point when the claimant and Ms Y went for a coffee, it was Ms Y who initiated that meeting rather than the claimant. The messages do indicate that. However, that is one incident amongst a whole range of interactions about which Ms Y has complained and which are reflected in the complaint; we draw no conclusions about the genuineness of her complaint based on that one exchange alone.

[209]By contrast, if Mr Scott had asked Ms Y to make a complaint, even if she had agreed to so, it is unlikely that she would have gone into the huge amount of detail in the complaint which she did.

[210]In summary, we do not accept Ms Simpson’s submission that Mr Scott asked Ms Y to make the complaint. Rather, we find that Ms Y, of her own volition, approached Mr Scott and genuinely made the complaint which she did. The fact that she did so at a point in time relatively soon after the outcome of the claimant’s grievance was given is simply a matter of coincidence.

[211]Similarly, we do not accept that there was any conspiracy involving Mr Scott, Ms Hazel, Mr Wynn and Mr Partington. We note the conclusions we have reached about the reliability of the evidence of Mr Scott, Ms Hazle and Mr Wynn generally, and we do not have any reason to doubt their evidence. We also consider that it is inherently unlikely, particularly given the careful way that the respondent investigated the claimant’s complaint up to that point, taking third party HR advice at every stage, that such a large number of individuals would be involved in a conspiracy to dismiss the claimant.

[212]As noted, there is a lacuna of information as to the reason for Mr Partington’s request for output data in relation to the claimant, which we will return to in our conclusions; however, whatever the reason, we have found for the reasons above that the decision to request it was Mr Partington’s and Mr Partington’s alone; there is therefore no basis for suggesting that that meant that Mr Scott, Mr Wynn and Ms Hazle were part of a conspiracy in this respect; and we find that they were not. 9 February 2024 - meeting with the claimant - 38 -

[213]Mr Scott, therefore, met the claimant on 9 February 2024. Mr Wynn was also present at that meeting and took notes. Again, the notes are not verbatim but are a summary of the points in the conversation, and we have no reason to doubt their accuracy and accept that they are accurate.

[214]Mr Scott went through the points raised by Ms Y in her complaint. During the meeting, the claimant accepted that a large number of the interactions described by Ms Y had taken place, for example following Ms Y out of the building and shouting after her, going for a coffee with Ms Y, going for a drink with Ms Y, shouting after her in the corridor, having asked Ms Y whether they were “blanking each other”, and having messaged her on Teams to ask how she was. He denied, however, having done anything wrong; as the notes record: “In his eyes he has not said anything naughty or anything. He said this is so unlikely he doesn’t fancy her, he prefers his women “a bit bigger”.”

[215]The notes of the meeting conclude with a summary: “Throughout the meeting Gamine was awkward. Avoided eye contact. Changed his story at various times, including contradicting himself. He did acknowledge running after her down the street, he did acknowledge having a drink with her after work. His main defence was that there was no intent in his actions.”

[216]In addition to the observations about the claimant’s demeanour set out in this summary, Mr Scott gave evidence that, throughout the meeting, he observed the claimant’s behaviour as being awkward and that the claimant avoided eye contact throughout the meeting; that he changed his story at various times and, at points, contradicted himself. Mr Wynn gave evidence that at the meeting the claimant was “very stressed and quite erratic when responding to the points in the complaint” and said that he found his behaviour odd during the meeting. Whilst as a tribunal we would not generally draw inferences about the reliability of someone’s evidence from his demeanour at a hearing, as there are many reasons why someone might appear nervous or stressed, including the unfamiliarity of the situation, what we have seen of the claimant’s demeanour at this tribunal is consistent with what Mr Scott and Mr Wynn say they observed of the claimant at this meeting. We do not, therefore, have any hesitation in accepting as a fact that how the claimant presented at that meeting was indeed as Mr Scott and Mr Wynn said he presented.

[217]Mr Wynn also gave evidence that the claimant did not acknowledge the seriousness of the complaint made against him. Mr Scott gave evidence that the claimant did not show any awareness as to how Ms Y had been made to feel as a result of his actions, with his explanation being that there was no “intent” behind his actions, and that the claimant also demonstrated a complete lack of awareness as to the serious nature of the complaints or of equality and diversity, as demonstrated at the point where he made the comment that he did not “fancy” Ms Y etc, as set out in full above. We have no reason to doubt their evidence and accept that that was the case.

[218]Ms Simpson submitted that there was no evidence that in the meeting, the claimant changed his story numerous times and contradicted himself, as Mr Wynn’s notes state. Mr Wynn’s notes do not give examples and, as already - 39 - noted, they are a brief summary of the meeting rather than verbatim notes. However, having seen the way the claimant presented at this tribunal, where he changed and developed his story and gave contradictory accounts (the account regarding his mobile phone being one such example which we quoted above), we have no hesitation in accepting that he did so at the 9 February 2024 meeting, as referenced in Mr Wynn’s notes. Further investigation

[219]Mr Scott subsequently met with another employee who had been referenced as having observed the claimant and Ms Y in the pub. That employee confirmed that he had seen the claimant in the pub with Ms Y and thought that it was weird that they were in the pub alone together and that the claimant acted strangely during their interaction. Mr Scott did not make a note of his conversation with this employee. However, we have no reason to doubt his evidence and we accept it. Effectively, for the most part, all this employee did was corroborate that the claimant and Ms Y were in the pub together, which they both accepted anyway; his evidence did not, therefore, add anything of importance.

[220]In connection with this investigation, Mr Scott again took advice from HR Dept. 16 February 2024 meetings

[221]Mr Scott met the claimant again on 16 February 2024. In fact, there were two separate meetings with him that day. Ms Hazle was present at both meetings as a notetaker. She had not been involved in the investigation of Ms Y’s complaint.

[222]The notes which she made were a contemporaneous record of the meetings. They are not verbatim, although in style they are a much fuller set of notes than the notes which Mr Wynn took of the meetings which he attended. As her notes are contemporaneous, and as we have no reason to doubt Ms Hazle’s evidence, we accept that they are an accurate record of the meetings.

[223]Once again, the claimant at a later stage produced his own set of notes which are said to be of these meetings on 16 February 2024. There are some significant differences between his notes and those of Ms Hazle. It is not necessary to go through them all. However, the claimant’s notes appear to have had shoehorned into them various pieces of legal vocabulary such as “victimised for raising that grievance”. The claimant’s notes have Mr Scott saying “what reason would [Ms Y] have to make all this up” and “women don’t make things like this up” and telling the claimant “you’re wasting your breath” and to “grab his belongings on the way out”. Ms Hazle gave evidence that these things simply weren’t said. For reasons of respective reliability of evidence, we accept Ms Hazle’s evidence and that these things were not said by Mr Scott. Many of them look like comments which have been added after the event in an attempt to suggest that inferences of sex discrimination can be drawn, in particular the comments which suggest that there is a stereotype at play in Mr Scott’s mind that - 40 - women don’t make up these sorts of allegations and are therefore automatically to be believed.

[224]In his witness statement, Mr Scott references many other examples in relation to these minutes of things which were not said and, in some instances, would be ridiculous things for him to have said in such a meeting. It is not necessary to repeat these here. In short, however, we do not accept that the claimant’s minutes of these meetings are accurate.

[225]If any inferences are to be drawn of stereotypical attitudes, it is from some of the comments made by the claimant in these meetings. As well as accusing Ms Y of lying and making up her complaint, he tried to rubbish her character by suggesting that she couldn’t handle her drink and that “she may get out of control/behaved promiscuously or just get legless. [Ms Y] had told him that at previous companies she was banned from work functions”. He “recalled a conversation where he thought [Ms Y] made a pass at him, and that she had said there would be “after party cocktails at mine” after the summer party”. He described her as a “woman scorned” and said that he “can’t understand how she’s gone from being so warm to this now”.

[226]Mr Scott gave evidence that in doing so the claimant again demonstrated a lack of awareness of the seriousness of the complaint.

[227]He also gave evidence, which we have no reason to doubt and therefore accept, that the claimant’s voice was incredibly loud and could be heard throughout the office from the meeting room and that two other senior managers both contacted Mr Scott to say they could hear almost the entirety of the meeting.

[228]The first meeting on 16 February 2024 was adjourned because the claimant indicated that he had evidence which he wished to be considered, which he then emailed to Mr Scott. Mr Scott reviewed the evidence. It did not make a lot of sense to him, because the claimant provided him with lots of bank statements to show all the different pubs and bars he went to and also provided him with his son’s school timetable. It was understandably unclear to Mr Scott as to why any of this was relevant.

[229]As Mr Scott explained to the claimant in the reconvened meeting at which the claimant was dismissed, the claimant’s own testimony corroborated the alleged interactions with Ms Y, and crucially Ms Y was saying that the (considerable) attention which the claimant gave her was unwanted; in other words that it was harassment related to her sex. The claimant’s additional evidence was not relevant because there was no dispute that the majority of the interactions had taken place.

[230]Having heard the account of Ms Y in the meeting of 2 February 2024 and the accounts of the claimant in the meeting of 9 February 2024 and the meeting of 16 February 2024, Mr Scott concluded that the claimant’s behaviour towards Ms Y was of a harassing nature. In light of the evidence, this was not an unreasonable conclusion to reach. - 41 -

[231]When the meeting reconvened later that day, Mr Scott dismissed the claimant. The claimant was dismissed with effect from 16 February 2024 and paid his three months’ salary in lieu of notice.

[232]Ms Simpson submits that the fact that the respondent chose to pay the claimant in lieu of notice is indicative that Mr Scott did not genuinely believe that the claimant had harassed Ms Y as, if he had believed that, this would have been gross misconduct and the claimant would have been dismissed without payment in lieu of notice. However, Mr Scott took HR advice. The respondent did not set up a full “gross misconduct” disciplinary hearing and did not dismiss for gross misconduct; rather, because the claimant had less than two years’ service, it used its “U24” procedure (in other words under 24 months’ service) and instead dismissed him without a formal disciplinary hearing, because he didn’t have the length of service which gave him unfair dismissal rights. Whilst the respondent could have held a disciplinary hearing and dismissed for gross misconduct, it did not do so; in the circumstances, the HR advice was that the claimant was entitled to his notice pay and the respondent, following that advice, accordingly paid it.

[233]Mr Scott confirmed the dismissal in writing in a letter dated 19 February 2024. Whilst the letter does not state in terms the reason why Mr Scott dismissed the claimant, it references “Concerns that had been raised by a colleague regarding your behaviour” and that “Having considered my findings and taking into account any explanations you raised, I can now confirm that a decision has been made to terminate your employment with immediate effect”. There are no references in the letter to any other potential reasons for dismissal.

[234]Mr Scott’s evidence at this tribunal was that the reason why he dismissed the claimant was predominantly the claimant’s behaviour in relation to Ms Y. He was asked by the judge whether there were any other reasons for dismissal. The judge specifically asked him whether the raising of the claimant’s grievance itself; the fact that Mr Scott was of the view that the majority of the claimant’s allegations against Ms Rana were fictitious (as opposed to the fact of bringing the grievance itself); or the difficult working relationship between the claimant and Ms Rana were part of his reason for dismissal; Mr Scott said that none of these played any part in his reason for dismissal.

[235]The judge asked him if the claimant’s performance data played any part in the reason for dismissal. Mr Scott initially suggested that the claimant’s conduct against Ms Y was two thirds of the reason for dismissal, with the performance data being the remainder of the reason. However, when he clarified this, he explained that the impact of performance data was something which was of relevance in the context of the sale of the respondent; specifically that if the claimant had been a good performer in terms of his output, such that the loss of a good performer might have had an adverse impact on headcount, which might correspondingly have an adverse impact on the sale going ahead, that might have been a reason not to dismiss the claimant at that point, despite the obvious concerns about his behaviour towards Ms Y. Essentially, it could have been a reason not to dismiss the claimant, rather than a reason to dismiss him. The reason to dismiss him was the conduct towards Ms Y. - 42 -

[236]In any case, the fact of the matter is that the respondent dismissed the claimant on 16 February 2024, but the contract for sale of the respondent had, on 8 February 2024, already been signed; any impact that the claimant’s performance data might have had on the decision to dismiss him or not was by that stage therefore historic.

[237]We accept, therefore, that the reason for dismissal was the conduct of the claimant towards Ms Y alone.

[238]Mr Scott subsequently informed Ms Y verbally that her complaint was upheld and that the claimant had been dismissed. Appeal

[239]The claimant appealed the decision to dismiss him by email of 23 February 2024 to Mr Partington, the respondent’s then CEO. He copied his email to Mr Scott. Mr Scott forwarded the email to HR Dept and took advice about how to respond. A response was agreed between HR Dept and Mr Scott, which was then forwarded to Mr Partington and subsequently sent by Mr Partington to the claimant. The response was: “As was explained during the meeting of 16th February, as you have been employed by Third Financial for under 24 months, there was no obligation to for us to carry out a formal disciplinary process. We therefore followed a procedure where your employment was terminated. You do not have the right to appeal.”

[240]The position was, consistent with the U24 dismissal process which the respondent adopted, that the respondent did not allow the claimant an appeal because he had less than two years’ continuous employment.

[241]The claimant was not, therefore, given a right to appeal against his Findings of fact regarding the alleged comments

[242]We now make findings of fact about the alleged comments. We start with the comments alleged to have been made by Ms Rana and then consider the comments alleged to have been made by Ms Hazle. In or around May 2023, during their first ever 1:1 training on Microsoft Teams, R5 said to the Claimant while discussing her holiday to Tenerife “I don’t like the Spanish people”.

[243]Ms Rana never made a trip to Tenerife. Her evidence before the tribunal was that, prior to her having started her employment with the respondent (in May 2023), she had the previous year made a trip to Gran Canaria (not Tenerife). She subsequently had a discussion with the claimant after she had returned from a separate trip to Turkey in early October 2023. During that conversation, the claimant asked if she could recommend any travel destinations, as he was planning or participating in a boys’ trip. In response, Ms Rana mentioned that she had been to Gran Canaria and that she had really enjoyed it. She also added that - 43 - as much as she loved the people and the place, it was a shame that she couldn’t live there permanently as she didn’t like paella (which she does not eat out of personal preference); that the claimant had responded by saying something along the lines of “Ay, you can’t say that”; that she had asked why and that, to clarify the point, she briefly shared her screen via Microsoft Teams to show what paella looked like on Google, since she was unsure of the correct pronunciation and thought the claimant had misunderstood her; that she had never said “I don’t like Spanish people”, and had merely shared a personal food preference in a casual, friendly conversation.

[244]Although this account is fuller than the account she gave in her investigation meeting on 17 January 2024, it is consistent with that account and, for reasons already given, we do not find it surprising that her account in her witness statement was fuller than the account she gave in that meeting, which was clearly an emotional meeting and one where the allegation was put to her for the first time out of the blue.

[245]By contrast to this context-filled account of a conversation, the claimant’s account in his 30 December 2023 complaint is relatively brief, as is the account in his claim form and the LOI (as set out in the heading relating to this complaint above). In that account, a generalised comment about disliking Spanish people as a whole appears to come almost out of the blue. That is somewhat surprising in itself, and in particular if, as the claimant maintains, it was right at the start of Ms Rana’s employment with the respondent in May 2023, at a time when, although she did not report to the claimant, he was the far more experienced Investment Administrator and was actually tasked with training the claimant; in those circumstances it is inherently less likely that a new employee would suddenly come out with a racially generalised and potentially offensive comment to an established employee who is actually training her.

[246]More noticeable still is the fact that the claimant embellishes what he maintains Ms Rana said, in his witness statement (at paragraphs 15-18). There he suggests that she not only said “I don’t like the Spanish people” but that she followed this up by saying “I hated the people there, honestly”. That is a significant addition which makes the alleged comment far more vitriolic and it is, therefore, very surprising that the claimant did not include this in either his 30 December 2023 complaint or in the claim form/LOI. That further casts doubt on the reliability of his account. He also goes on to give more context about how uncomfortable the comment made him, “especially given that two of my nieces are of Spanish heritage”. Again, this was not included in the original complaint, which is again surprising as the claimant at this tribunal made much of the fact that his nieces were of Spanish heritage as being why he was so terribly offended by these comments.

[247]We do not draw much from the fact the claimant originally insisted that the alleged comments were made following a holiday by Ms Rana to Tenerife, when in fact she had not been to Tenerife, as it is possible that, had the comments been made, he had simply misremembered which of the Canary Islands Ms Rana had in fact visited. However, it is more surprising that he - 44 - continued to maintain into this hearing that it was Tenerife when, by that stage, it should have been clear that that was unlikely to have been the case.

[248]In terms of timing, however, the evidence points towards Ms Rana’s account. As we have already found, the claimant did not reference this alleged comment when he spoke to Ms Hazle in the summer of 2023 (he only referenced a comment relating to Gujaratis). That is consistent with Ms Rana’s account that the discussion relating to Spain did not take place until October 2023.

[249]Furthermore, as we have already found, the claimant had told Ms X his account of what was said, such that she referenced it in her December 2023 conversation with Ms Hazle, which is evidenced in Ms Hazle’s email of 14 December 2023. Again, the timing would be consistent with a conversation having happened between Ms Rana and the claimant in October 2023, and the claimant relaying his version of that conversation to Ms X at some point between then and early December 2023. As already noted, this appears to be the only one of the many comments which the claimant claims Ms Rana made which Ms X (or anyone else) subsequently referenced. That is consistent with a conversation about Spain having taken place between the claimant and Ms Rana and having taken place in or around October 2023.

[250]For all these reasons, and our findings on the respective reliability of evidence of the claimant and Ms Rana, we accept that Ms Rana’s version of events is what actually happened.

[251]The comment alleged by the claimant that “I don’t like Spanish people” was not, therefore, made. On or around 21 June 2023, during their 1:1 training on Microsoft Teams, R5 said to the Claimant “I hate Gujarati’s and Punjabi’s”. The Claimant provided the exact date and time of this incident verbally to Ms Hazle in June and in July 2023, but is not sure of the exact date. Immediately after, the Claimant claims to have informed R5 his wife is Gujarati, and R5 replied “I don’t care, I hate Gujarati’s. From my experience they think they’re all that. I don’t like their food or the people”.

[252]Ms Rana denies having made these remarks. She is Indian herself and she gave evidence that it would make no sense for her to speak negatively about Gujaratis or Punjabis. She also gave evidence that she was aware that the claimant’s wife was of Gujarati heritage; it would not, therefore, have been necessary for the claimant to have informed her that his wife was of Gujarati heritage and it is even less likely that, knowing that the claimant’s wife was of Gujarati heritage, she would make such offensive comments about Gujaratis to him.

[253]Ms Rana recalls a conversation between the claimant and her that took place around Diwali, which usually falls in October (and was therefore in or around October 2023); the claimant asked where she bought sweets from and there was a conversation between them about this; during that discussion, they - 45 - talked about a particular popular Indian sweet called “Jalebi” and Ms Rana said that she personally preferred the Punjabi version of Jalebi over the Gujarati version, simply as a matter of taste.

[254]Ms Hazle’s evidence, which we have already accepted, was that, when the claimant approached her in the summer of 2023, he had told her that Ms Rana had said something racist related to Gujaratis, specifically the comment that “they are all up themselves”. That limited alleged comment does not reflect the extensive comments which the claimant at this tribunal alleges Ms Rana made. That in itself is a cause for concern as to whether what he is now saying is correct.

[255]In terms of timing, we consider that it is far more likely that the inspiration for the claimant’s allegation at this tribunal that Ms Rana made highly offensive comments about both Gujaratis and Punjabis in June 2023 in fact came from the innocuous conversation about sweets and the references in that to both Gujaratis and Punjabis which took place in October 2023, which then made their way into the claimant’s written complaint on 30 December 2023. Furthermore, we accept that it is bizarre that anyone, not least of all a new employee who was being trained by the claimant in or around June 2023, would say something so obviously offensive out of the blue in the way that the claimant maintains. That is particularly so, if Ms Rana knew that the claimant’s wife was of Gujarati heritage (which, having no reason to doubt her evidence, we accept she was aware of).

[256]Furthermore, the claimant once again embellished these comments in his evidence in his witness statement. First, at paragraph 23, he attempts to give context to what he must have realised looked like strange, out of the blue offensive statements by Ms Rana. He does so by suggesting that the conversation began with Ms Rana stating that she didn’t like the current Indian Prime Minister; that the claimant really didn’t know enough about him to offer an opinion but just knew he was from Gujarat; and therefore said “he’s Gujarati right?”; and that this prompted the start of Ms Rana’s series of alleged comments beginning “I hate Gujarati’s and Punjabis”. Had that happened, it is again very surprising that such an obviously memorable link to the comments would not have been referenced by the claimant in either his 30 December 2023 complaint or the claim or the LOI.

[257]Interestingly, Ms Rana’s evidence, which we have no reason to doubt and therefore accept, was that the claimant would often engage in friendly conversations with her and was very chatty over Microsoft Teams and frequently shared his past experiences with her. She further gave evidence in this context that on one occasion, the claimant asked her for her opinion on India’s Prime Minister, who is of Gujarati background, but she simply replied that she was not interested in politics. Ms Rana’s evidence, which we have no reason to doubt and therefore accept, is the polar opposite of the claimant’s, in that it was he who raised such matters with her rather than the other way around, as he maintained in paragraph 23 of his witness statement. Once again, this appears to be another example of the claimant taking a piece of conversation which did happen (his asking Ms Rana about India’s Prime Minister) and twisting it into something very different in an attempt to give credence to his own account of events. - 46 -

[258]The claimant then added (at paragraphs 27 and 28 of his witness statement) that Ms Rana, after the comments set out in the allegation in the claim, “went on to say that she should know as she lives around Wembley and all she sees are Gujarati people on Ealing Road, followed by “honestly, I can’t stand them””; and that he then told her that he found the comments offensive and she then said “so, what do you want me to do about it”. Again, the fact that these alleged remarks were not referenced in the original complaint or the claim or the LOI is very surprising if they were indeed made.

[259]For all these reasons, coupled with our findings on the relative reliability of evidence of the claimant and Ms Rana, we accept Ms Rana’s evidence that the alleged comments were not made by her and that all that happened was the innocuous conversation about sweets referenced above.

[260]Although it is not the allegation before the tribunal, that still begs the question as to what if anything led the claimant to tell Ms Hazle in the summer of 2023 that Ms Rana had made a comment about “they are all up themselves” relating to Gujaratis. We reiterate that there is no contemporaneous evidence as to Ms Rana having said anything of this nature. That includes an absence of any contemporaneous text/WhatsApp messages between the claimant and his wife; that is in itself surprising if Ms Rana had said anything of this nature, as we can see from other messages in the bundle between the claimant and his wife that they texted/What’sApped regularly about work-related matters regarding the claimant. Ms Rana denies having made any such remark and, for the reasons already set out above, in particular the fact that it is so unlikely that a new employee would make such an obviously offensive remark to a colleague, knowing that that colleague’s wife was of Gujarati heritage, coupled with our findings on the respective reliability of the evidence of the claimant and Ms Rana, we find that this remark was not made by Ms Rana.

[261]Knowing what we do about the claimant’s modus operandi as a result of this hearing, and because of the fact that he was so insistent to Ms Hazle that the matter should not be taken further, we consider that, in making this allegation to Ms Hazle in the summer of 2023, it is more likely that the claimant was simply putting down a marker and preparing a position for himself which he might then be able to put to use in future if he considered it necessary; and which, in December 2023, he ultimately did. During the same conversation, R5 said to the Claimant “Sri Lankan people are normally so dark, but you’re not. You must be the only one. Do you use ‘fair and lovely’ (a skin bleaching brand)?”, and laughed.

[262]Ms Rana denied having made this comment.

[263]This comment is particularly striking as, on its face, it appears likely to have been one of the most offensive of the alleged comments, given its references to skin colour. And yet, extraordinarily, it did not appear in the claimant’s written complaint of 30 December 2023. That in itself causes significant doubt as to whether it was made. - 47 -

[264]For that reason, and because of our findings regarding the respective reliability of the evidence of the claimant and Ms Rana, we accept Ms Rana’s evidence and find that this comment was simply never made. On an unknown date after 21 June 2023, during their first 1:1 conversation on Microsoft Teams after R5 returned from a holiday to Budapest, R5 said to the Claimant while discussing her holiday to Budapest “I didn’t like the people. All the men there are perverts”.

[265]Ms Rana gave evidence that she did recall a conversation between her and the claimant that took place following her birthday trip to Budapest; she told the claimant that during her visit to one of the thermal spas in Budapest, an incident occurred involving a man whom she did not know who appeared to be taking a video with his phone directed at her and continued to record her and catcall her as she walked towards the changing rooms; she described this particular individual’s behaviour as that of a “pervert”, based on how he was acting during that incident; however, she was referring only to that individual’s conduct and at no point did she generalise this to all men, as the claimant suggests in his allegation.

[266]Although this allegation is made by the claimant in his 30 December 2023 complaint, he notably does not even address it in his witness statement for this tribunal (despite that statement running to some 36 pages). Again, the account given by Ms Rana is full of context. The claimant’s account as set out in the LOI and his complaint is of a comment about not liking the people in Budapest generally and that all the men there are perverts, which without any further context appears to be an unlikely thing to say.

[267]For these reasons, and because of the respective reliability of the evidence of the claimant and Ms Rana, we accept Ms Rana’s evidence. The comments alleged by the claimant did not, therefore, occur.

[268]Once again, this appears to be a further example of the claimant taking a real but innocuous conversation which he had with Ms Rana, and twisting it into something which could form the basis of a racial harassment complaint against her. In or around November 2023, in the office, R5 said to the Claimant “I hate this fucking country”.

[269]Ms Rana denies having made this comment.

[270]For reasons of respective reliability of evidence, we prefer her evidence to that of the claimant, and we find that this comment was not made. On or around 19 June 2023 at approximately 2pm, R5 said to the Claimant “you experience and suggested he was on a significantly higher wage than her. She - 48 - said to the Claimant “I am looking for a sugar daddy”, asked if his wife was home and suggested to him that he could be her sugar daddy. In or around late October 2023 R5 repeated her suggestion that the Claimant

[271]Ms Rana denies having made these comments.

[272]The context which the claimant gives to the alleged “sugar daddy” comment in June 2023 is a discussion between him and Ms Rana about salary. Ms Rana recalls that the claimant did ask her about her previous work experience (in the NHS) and what led her to pursue a career in financial services; that he then enquired whether the pay was good in the NHS and Ms Rana replied that she was earning more in her role in the NHS than at the respondent; that he then specifically asked her what her salary was and, without thinking much of it at the time, she disclosed to him her exact salary in the NHS. Again this is consistent not only with the fact that the claimant and Ms Rana initially had a friendly working relationship in which they were able to have discussions about such personal matters, but also with the claimant’s practice of asking questions and seeking information from Ms Rana (rather than the other way around). We have no reason to doubt Ms Rana’s evidence in this respect, and we accept it.

[273]What then happens is, consistent with other similar examples, that the claimant turns this discussion into one where it is Ms Rana who is making suggestions that he is on a significantly higher wage than her (which he was) and complaining about her own salary and, in that context, telling him that she is looking for a “sugar daddy”, and asking him, despite knowing that he is married, whether he is available. Once again, we consider that what the claimant has done is taken a conversation that actually took place and twisted it into something very different which might form the basis of a complaint. It also says something about the claimant’s imagination that, having established that Ms Rana’s salary was substantially less than his own, he considered that it was therefore plausible for him to assert that she would ask him to be a “sugar daddy” to her, which perhaps also says more about the claimant’s attitude to money than Ms Rana’s.

[274]We accept that Ms Rana knew at that point that the claimant was married. Both parties accept that a “sugar daddy” can be properly defined as an elder man who provides financial benefits to a younger woman in exchange for sexual favours. Again, given that Ms Rana had just joined the respondent, worked closely with the claimant, and was even being trained by the claimant at that point, we find it highly unlikely that she would, in the knowledge that the claimant was married, make such an outrageous suggestion to him.

[275]Furthermore, as we have already found, the claimant did not tell Ms Hazle about an alleged “sugar daddy” comment when he spoke to her in the summer of 2023. Again, if the comment had been made and he had been so offended by it, it is surprising that he did not do that. - 49 -

[276]In addition, we note that the first time that a “sugar daddy” reference was made by the claimant was in his written complaint of 30 December 2023. However, even there, it was not set out as one of the six numbered complaints which form the basis for his written complaint, but was set out in a subsequent paragraph as part of a general allegation of alleged unprofessionalism on Ms Rana’s part; and, significantly, it was not stated to have been directed at him. It was, at best, clearly not something which was at the forefront of the claimant’s mind as a complaint about Ms Rana even on 30 December 2023, let alone in June 2023. No emphasis was placed on it during the course of the investigation of the claimant’s written complaint, either by Mr Scott or by the claimant. The reason for that was that it wasn’t seen as part of the complaint by either of them. The comment only comes to prominence in the claim itself, where it forms the basis of the claimant’s sexual harassment complaints and the starting point for his harassment related to sex complaints.

[277]Indeed, as we shall come to in relation to the complaints he has made at this tribunal of alleged harassment related to sex against Ms Hazle, all of these allegations of harassment related to sex appear to amount to matters considered by the claimant only after the event and in the context of putting his claim together.

[278]For all these reasons, and because of the respective reliability of evidence of the claimant and Ms Rana, we accept Ms Rana’s evidence.

[279]Accordingly, we find that the “sugar daddy” comments were not made, either in June 2023 or October 2023 or otherwise.

[280]We turn now to the comments allegedly made by Ms Hazle. There are a number of alleged comments and we deal with them in two separate tranches. In or around June 2023, when the Claimant informally and verbally (via Microsoft Teams) raised a complaint about R5’s behaviour with R4 on Microsoft Teams, R4 told to the Claimant to “man up”, stating no one else has had problems with her and he should just be firmer with her. On or around 11 July 2023, when the Claimant again raised an informal and verbal complaint with R4 via Microsoft Teams about R5’s behaviour (specifically alleging that he felt sexually harassed due to her ‘sugar daddy’ comments), R4 said to the Claimant that she didn’t think this amounted to sexual harassment.

[281]Ms Hazle denies having made any of these comments.

[282]As noted, there are no contemporaneous documents which evidence Ms Hazle having said any of this. As we have also noted, there are not even any text or WhatsApp messages between the claimant and his wife relating to any of these alleged comments, which is surprising, as the claimant’s wife admitted that she had access to any such messages on her phone and, as we have seen from other exchanges, the claimant and his wife frequently messaged each other on matters relating to the claimant’s work. If these comments had been made, it is - 50 - surprising that there is no text or WhatsApp message which in any way references any one of them.

[283]The claimant has framed these alleged comments around two alleged conversations which he says he had with Ms Hazle in June and July 2023 respectively. We have, of course, found that he in fact had only one such conversation with Ms Hazle, at some point in the summer of 2023. That in itself casts doubt on the likelihood of the claimant’s assertions. However, we have also found that he did not during that conversation say anything to Ms Hazle about an alleged “sugar daddy” comment or that he felt sexually harassed by Ms Rana. Therefore, as Ms Hazle was not told about the alleged “sugar daddy” comment, she could not have told the claimant that such a comment did not amount to sexual harassment.

[284]Furthermore, we have already noted the dilemma which Ms Hazle found herself in about whether to follow the claimant’s instruction not to raise further the matter he did speak to her about (the alleged Gujarati comment), or to risk breaching his trust by doing so, and the fact that she spent time reflecting on this before speaking to Mr Wynn and Mr Scott in September 2022. We also note the care which was then taken to get advice from HR Dept as to what to do in the circumstances and to follow that advice, both in September 2023 and in the subsequent investigation of the claimant’s written complaint. In short, Ms Hazle, Mr Wynn and Mr Scott all took their responsibilities seriously. In the light of that evidence, we consider it highly unlikely in its own right that Ms Hazle would, in response to an allegation of sexual harassment by the claimant, simply dismiss it in the terms which the claimant says she dismissed it, particularly using such obviously gender-biased language to do so.

[285]For all these reasons, and our findings on the respective reliability of the evidence of the claimant and Ms Hazle, we accept Ms Hazle’s evidence and find these comments were simply not made by her.

[286]Furthermore, as indicated earlier, we consider that the claimant has made these remarks up after the event in the process of trying to put together plausible sexual harassment/harassment related to sex allegations for his claim. The examples which he has chosen are clumsily stereotypical examples of gender-biased comments, for example the suggestion that Ms Hazle would, in response to allegations of sexual harassment, tell the claimant to “man up” or “be firmer with” the employee whom he was alleging had harassed him. R4 stated to the Claimant that he would “probably just need to get on with it”, and employment were of no value to the company; and R4 told the Claimant that “proceeding with a formal complaint would probably only put [him] on the map, as we’ve never had one of those here".

[287]Ms Hazle denies having made these comments as well. - 51 -

[288]We reiterate the conclusions which we have drawn in the section above regarding the other comments alleged to have been made by Ms Hazle. For these reasons, and because of our findings on the respective reliability of the evidence of the claimant and Ms Hazle, we accept Ms Hazle’s evidence and find that she did not make these remarks.

[289]It is also worth observing that, consistent with other examples set out above, the alleged comment about employees with under two years’ employment being of no value to the company has almost certainly been derived, in the claimant’s imagination, from the subsequent process which led to his dismissal, during which he was told, in the context of Mr Partington’s email of 26 February 2024 confirming that he did not have the right to an appeal, that there was no obligation for the respondent to carry out a formal disciplinary process because he had been employed by the respondent for under 24 months. Mr Partington’s email did not, of course, state that employees with under two years’ employment were of no value to the company (which would be a bizarre and nonsensical statement in its own right); however, once again, a statement that was actually made by the respondent has, in the hands of the claimant, been changed and twisted into something different and, in this case, attributed to another manager (Ms Hazle), as having been said by her roughly six months prior to Mr Partington’s email. Summary regarding alleged comments

[290]In summary, therefore, we find that none of the various comments, which the claimant has alleged were made respectively by Ms Rana and Ms Hazle, were in fact made. The law Direct sex discrimination, harassment related to race and sex, harassment of a sexual nature and victimisation

The law

[291]Under section 13(1) Equality Act 2010 (“EQA”), a person(a) (A) discriminates against another person

(b) (B) if, because of a protected characteristic, A treats B less favourably than A treats or would treat others (direct discrimination). Sex is a protected characteristic for the purposes of direct discrimination.

[292]For the purposes of the comparison required in relation to direct discrimination between B and an actual or hypothetical comparator, there must be no material difference between the circumstances relating to B and the comparator.

[293]Under section 26(1) EQA, a person(a) (A) harasses another person

(b) (B) if A engages in unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic and the conduct has the purpose or effect of violating B’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B. Race and sex are protected characteristics for the purposes of harassment. - 52 -

[294]Under section 26(2) EQA, a person(a) (A) harasses another person

(b) (B) if A engages in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature and the conduct has the purpose or effect of violating B’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B.

[295]In deciding whether conduct has the effect referred to above (but not the purpose referred to above), each of the following must be taken into account: the perception of B; the other circumstances of the case; and whether it is reasonable for the conduct to have that effect.

[296]In Richmond Pharmacology v Dhaliwal

2009 ICR 724

EAT Mr Justice Underhill, then President of the EAT, said: ‘Not every racially slanted adverse comment or conduct may constitute the violation of a person’s dignity. Dignity is not necessarily violated by things said or done which are trivial or transitory, particularly if it should have been clear that any offence was unintended’. The EAT affirmed this view in Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board v Hughes and ors EAT 0179/13. The EAT observed that ‘the word “violating” is a strong word. Offending against dignity, hurting it, is insufficient. “Violating” may be a word the strength of which is sometimes overlooked. The same might be said of the words “intimidating” etc. All look for effects which are serious and marked, and not those which are, though real, truly of lesser consequence’. Indeed, the Court of Appeal in HM Land Registry v Grant (Equality and Human Rights Commission intervening)

2011 ICR 1390

further stated in this context that ‘tribunals must not cheapen the significance of these words since they are an important control to prevent trivial acts causing minor upsets being caught by the concept of harassment’.

[297]Section 27 EQA provides that a person(a) (A) victimises another person

(b) (B) if A subjects B to a detriment because B does a protected act or A believes that B has done or may do a protected act. Protected acts include the bringing of proceedings under the EQA or making an allegation, whether express or not, that A or another person has contravened the EQA.

[298]However, section 27(3) EQA provides that “Giving false evidence or information, or making a false allegation, is not a protected act if the evidence or information is given, or the allegation is made, in bad faith.”.

[299]Saad v Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust

UKEAT/0276/17

is authority that the issue of ulterior motive is of less relevance to bad faith, the primary question is the claimant’s honesty. “50. When determining whether an employee has acted in bad faith for the purposes of subsection 27(3) EqA, the primary question is thus whether they have acted honestly in giving the evidence or information or in making the allegation…the issue is not the employee’s purpose but their belief.”

[300]Under sections 39(2) EQA, an employer must not discriminate against an employee of his on various grounds, including dismissing him or subjecting him to any other detriment. Under section 40(1) EQA, an employer must not harass an employee of his. Where conduct constitutes harassment, it cannot also constitute a detriment as defined in the Act and therefore cannot be direct - 53 - discrimination as well as harassment. Under section 39(4) of the Act, an employer must not victimise an employee of his by dismissing that employee or subjecting that employee to a detriment.

[301]In respect of the above provisions, the burden of proof rests initially on the employee to prove on the balance of probabilities facts from which the tribunal could decide, in the absence of any other explanation, that the employer did contravene one of these provisions. To do so the employee must show more than merely that she was subjected to detrimental treatment by the employer and that the relevant protected characteristic applied; there must be “something more” to indicate a connection between the two (Madarassy v Nomura International plc

[2007] IRLR 246

). If the employee can establish this, the burden of proof shifts to the employer to show that on the balance of probabilities it did not contravene that provision. If the employer is unable to do so, we must hold that the provision was contravened.

[302]However, if the tribunal can make clear positive findings as to an employer’s motivation, then it need not revert to the burden of proof (Martin v Devonshires Solicitors

[2001] ICR 352

(EAT)). Time limits

[303]The EQA provides that a complaint under the EQA may not be brought after the end of the period of three months starting with the date of the act to which the complaint relates or such other period as the employment tribunal thinks just and equitable. The primary time-limit is extended by reference to periods of time spent in ACAS early conciliation.

[304]The EQA further provides that conduct extending over a period is to be treated as done at the end of the period and that failure to do something is to be treated as occurring when the person in question decided on it.

[305]In Hendricks v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis

[2003] IRLR 96

CA, the Court of Appeal stated that, in determining whether there was “an act extending over a period”, as distinct from a succession of unconnected or isolated specific acts, for which time would begin to run from the date when each specific act was committed, the focus should be on the substance of the complaints that the employer was responsible for an ongoing situation or a continuing state of affairs.

[306]As to whether it is just and equitable to extend time, it is for the claimant to persuade the tribunal that it is just and equitable to do so and the exercise of the discretion is thus the exception rather than the rule. There is no presumption that time will be extended, see Robertson v Bexley Community Centre

[2003] IRLR 434

CA. Conclusions on the issues

[307]We make the following conclusions, applying the law to the facts found in relation to the agreed issues. - 54 - Harassment related to race

[308]We have found that the alleged comments at paragraph 5(a-f) of the LOI were not made. As they were not made, all of the complaints of harassment related to race fail. Sexual harassment

[309]We have found that the alleged comments at paragraph 9(a-b) of the LOI were not made. As they were not made, all of the complaints of sexual harassment fail. Harassment related to sex

[310]We have found that the alleged comments at paragraph 13(a-b) and 14(a-b) of the LOI were not made. As they were not made, all of the complaints of harassment related to sex fail. Direct sex discrimination

[311]We have found that the alleged comments at paragraph 18(a) and (c) of the LOI were not made. As they were not made, these complaints of direct sex discrimination fail.

[312]We now address the remaining allegations under paragraph 18 of the LOI. b. R1/2/3/4 did not suitably investigate or uphold the Claimant’s complaints and took no action against R5.

[313]This allegation is framed in very broad terms, lacking clarity as to whether it refers just to the investigation of the claimant’s written complaint in December 2023 or to his earlier disclosure to Ms Hazle in the summer of 2023. However, we consider that, in relation to both, and as set out in our findings of fact above, the respondent did suitably investigate the claimant’s complaints.

[314]Ms Hazle was in a difficult position in the summer of 2023, faced with an allegation of harassment from an employee but, at the same time, a clear request from that employee that the matter should not be raised further. Whilst we agree that it would have been preferable for her to have raised the matter to Mr Wynn immediately, notwithstanding the claimant’s request that she should not do so, we nevertheless do not consider that her delay in doing so was “unsuitable”; the delay was for entirely understandable reasons, so that aspect of this allegation is not made out on the facts and therefore fails at the first stage. Either way, her delay was nothing whatsoever to do with sex, so that allegation of direct sex discrimination fails for that reason to.

[315]Furthermore, once she told Mr Wynn, the action taken by Mr Scott in consulting the respondent’s external HR provider and following its sensible - 55 - advice, as set out in our findings of fact above, was entirely suitable. That aspect of the allegation therefore also fails on the facts. Furthermore, the actions taken were nothing to do with sex; they were entirely based on sensible HR advice which fitted with the factual situation at the time.

[316]As regards December 2023, it was entirely suitable for Mr Wynn and Mr Scott to ask the claimant to set out his complaints in writing. This was because they could not make sense of them from the oral conversations that were had. As that decision was suitable, this aspect of the allegation also fails on the facts. In any event, the decision to do so had nothing whatsoever to do with sex and the allegation fails for that reason as well.

[317]Finally, in terms of investigating the written complaint, Mr Scott carried out investigation meetings with both the claimant and Ms Rana, which was entirely suitable. The further investigation which he did was, for the reasons set out in our findings of fact above, also suitable. This part of the allegation therefore also fails in the facts. Furthermore, none of the actions taken by Mr Scott in terms of carrying out the investigation were in any way whatsoever because of sex; what he did simply reflected what he thought was the appropriate course of action, having taken external HR advice at every stage.

[318]The respondent did not uphold the claimant’s complaints and did not take any action against Ms Rana. However, it did so because it did not consider that the allegations which the claimant made were substantiated and, for the reasons set out above, that was an entirely reasonable conclusion to draw. In any event, it was nothing whatsoever to do with sex. This aspect of this allegation therefore also fails.

[319]In short, all of the various aspects of this allegation of direct sex discrimination fail. d. R1/2/3/4 automatically disbelieved the Claimant’s defence to allegations of his own inappropriate behaviour.

[320]Neither the respondent, nor Mr Scott nor Ms Hazle, automatically disbelieved the claimant’s defence to allegations of his own inappropriate behaviour and this allegation therefore fails on the facts at the first stage.

[321]Mr Scott considered the claimant’s account at the meeting of 9 February 2024. Furthermore, he considered the further evidence provided by the claimant on 16 February 2024. However, the claimant had accepted that the majority of the interactions with Ms Y had taken place and, having heard all the evidence, Mr Scott was perfectly entitled to consider that his actions towards Ms Y had been of a harassing nature.

[322]We have found that the claimant’s notes of the various meetings were fabricated, including where he has included comments said to have been made by Mr Scott which, if made, might indicate a discriminatory mindset, vis-à-vis automatically believing a woman who complains of sexual harassment. In the absence of those, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate a discriminatory - 56 - mindset on the part of Mr Scott. By contrast, having analysed the evidence in both of the complaints made, we have concluded that it was entirely reasonable on the basis of the evidence to have concluded on the one hand that the comments alleged to have been made by Ms Rana were not in fact made, but on the other hand to conclude that the claimant had harassed Ms Y on the grounds of sex.

[323]The decision which Mr Scott ultimately came to in relation to Ms Y’s complaint was nothing whatsoever to do with sex; it was for the reasons set out in full in our findings of fact and summarised in the paragraphs above. e. R1/2 disciplined and dismissed the Claimant. R3/4 were party to that decision.

[324]The respondent did discipline and dismiss the claimant (albeit it did so under its U24 procedure rather than a full misconduct disciplinary process). However, the decision to do so was Mr Scott’s decision; it was not Ms Hazle’s decision.

[325]Mr Scott’s decision was, however, for the reasons set out in full in our findings of fact and summarised in our conclusions on allegation 18(d) above. It was nothing whatsoever to do with sex. This complaint of direct sex discrimination therefore also fails. Comparators

[326]The comparators cited by the claimant provide no assistance.

[327]Ms Y was cited as a comparator in relation to the allegations at paragraphs (a-c). However, the facts of these allegations were not established.

[328]Ms Rana was cited as a comparator in relation to allegations (d-e). However, her circumstances were materially different to those of the claimant. This is because the claimant made a complaint about Ms Rana which, on the evidence, the respondent was entirely reasonable in not upholding; whereas Ms Y made a complaint about the claimant which the respondent was, on the evidence, entirely reasonable in upholding. Victimisation Protected acts Alleged protected acts 1 and 2: (“Protected Act 1”): In or around June 2023, the Claimant said to R4 verbally (via Microsoft Teams) that R5 was making many comments which he considered to be racist. The Claimant included specifics that R5 had said to him she hated Spanish, Gujarati and Punjabi people; had asked the Claimant if he used ‘fair and lovely’ cream as he was not dark-skinned like ‘most Sri Lankans’. The - 57 - Claimant also told R4 that R5 had asked him to be her sugar daddy, which he found to be offensive and inappropriate. (“Protected Act 2”): On or around 11 July 2023, the Claimant said to R4 verbally, via Microsoft Teams, that R5’s inappropriate comments included racial comments and sexual harassment, and they made him feel deeply uncomfortable. The Claimant told R4 that R5 had asked him to be her “sugar daddy”, and that he felt sexually harassed by this. The Claimant also told R4 that R5 had said to him “I hate Gujarati and Punjabi people, they think they’re all that, I don’t like their food or the people”.

[329]As we have found, there was only one conversation in the summer of 2023 between the claimant and Ms Hazle, rather than the two conversations which he alleges as his protected acts 1 and 2. Furthermore, we have found that in that conversation he did not reference the majority of the matters which he now alleges he referenced under his alleged protected acts 1 and 2. Specifically, he did not reference the Spanish comment, the “fair and lovely” comment, the “sugar daddy” comment, or that Ms Rana allegedly said that she hated Gujarati and Punjabi people or that she didn’t like their food or the people.

[330]What we did find was that, in the conversation that did take place in the summer of 2023, the claimant told Ms Hazle that Ms Rana had said something allegedly racist which related to Gujarati people with the alleged comment being “they are all up themselves”. That is an allegation of potential racial harassment and, subject to any issues of whether or not it was made in bad faith, would be a protected act for the purposes of the EQA.

[331]Furthermore, this is close enough to the claimant’s allegation towards the end of his alleged protected act 2 that Ms Rana said “they think they’re all that” for us to find that what the claimant told Ms Hazle was more or less the same as what he alleges he told her in that small section of alleged protected act 2. So, whilst the vast majority of the allegations which make up these two alleged protected acts were not said to Ms Hazle, this one single aspect was. Subject to issues of bad faith, therefore, this would be a protected act.

[332]However, as we have already found, Ms Rana did not make the comment about Gujarati people being “all up themselves” to the claimant. Furthermore, as we have already found, we consider that, particularly as Ms Rana had not said this and as the claimant, who is an intelligent individual, must have known that she did not say it, it is more likely that, in making this disclosure to Ms Hazle, the claimant was not making this disclosure in good faith: that firstly, he was knowingly and dishonestly saying something that was false; and secondly, was simply putting down a marker and preparing a position for himself which he might then be able to put to use in future if he considered it necessary; and which, in December 2023, he ultimately did. He was not, therefore, making this disclosure in good faith; rather, he knew it was untrue and he did it dishonestly; although motive is less relevant than the honesty issue, he also did it for an ulterior motive. - 58 -

[333]He therefore made the disclosure in bad faith. As the disclosure was made in bad faith, this was not a protected act. (“Protected Act 3”): On 30 December 2023, the Claimant sent to R3 and R4 by email a formal complaint in writing, about R5. The complaint included allegations that R5 had made inappropriate comments to him regarding race, and about wanting a “sugar daddy”. (“Protected Act 4”): On 05 January 2024, during a meeting chaired by R3 with the Claimant regarding his formal grievance against R5, the Claimant: stated that R5 made comments about not liking Spanish people and hating this country; referred to this as racial discrimination and prejudice, narrow-minded, inappropriate in the workplace and offensive to him; stated he had listened to comments from R5 about his wife’s heritage, and put up with sexual harassment; stated R1/R2 should consider equality, diversity and inclusion training for its employees; stated that R4 had attempted to discourage him from raising these complaints formally; that R5 had asked him to be his ‘sugar daddy’ on more than one occasion; that he felt his concerns would be taken more seriously if he were a woman raising complaints about a man; and that R1/2 was failing to protect him.

[334]The claimant’s written complaint of 30 December 2023 contains allegations of racial harassment. As these would amount to a breach of the EQA, the written complaint would, subject to any considerations about whether it was done in good faith, amount to a protected act. (Whilst it makes no difference to whether or not the written complaint was a protected act, we do not consider that the inclusion of the expression “sugar daddy” in that written complaint would in itself make it a protected act; for reasons already given earlier, we do not consider that, at the time, the claimant was making an allegation (express or implied) that Ms Rana had subjected him to sexual harassment/harassment related to sex in this respect.)

[335]As to the investigation meeting on 5 January 2024, it is very hard to judge which of the many alleged assertions in alleged protected act 4 the claimant did make at the meeting, as he didn’t make coherent sense. However, it is accepted that he did relay points of the written grievance, which are allegations of harassment related to race. In doing so, he was, therefore, subject to any considerations about whether this was done in bad faith, doing a protected act. (Again, however, whilst it makes no difference as to whether or not alleged protected act 4 was a protected act, the claimant did not raise the “sugar daddy” issue at that investigation meeting.)

[336]However, we have already found that none of the alleged comments were made. The claimant is an intelligent man and would have known full well that they were not made. He nonetheless made these allegations. Furthermore, as we have already found, his motivation in doing so in December 2023 was to get Ms Rana dismissed.

[337]The allegations were therefore false. Furthermore, those false allegations were made in bad faith. First, the claimant did not make a mistake in giving false information; he knew full well that he was giving false information and - 59 - he was therefore dishonest in doing so. Furthermore, whilst dishonesty is the key reason as to why the allegations were made in bad faith, the claimant also made the allegations for an ulterior motive, and a despicable motive at that; namely, in order to get Ms Rana dismissed.

[338]Alleged protected acts 3 and 4 were, therefore, both done in bad faith. They were not, therefore, protected acts. Paragraph 23 of the LOI

[339]However, we note that at paragraph 23 of the LOI it states that “the Respondent accepts that Protected Acts 3 and 4 were protected acts”. Having read the parties’ written submissions, we noted that Mr Curtis did not make any reference to this point in his written submissions. However, having by that stage heard all the evidence and read the written submissions of both parties, we were conscious that we would need to make findings as to whether or not Ms Rana’s alleged comments were made and that, given the significant differences in the evidence of the claimant and Ms Rana in relation to the comments, that it may be open to us or even necessary to find that one or the other of them had knowingly (in other words dishonestly) made or defended those allegations. Therefore, before hearing the representatives’ oral submissions, the judge explained this to them and asked both representatives if they would address the tribunal on the point. They duly did so.

[340]Mr Curtis noted that the respondent’s grounds of resistance did not make any concession regarding the alleged protected acts. However, he acknowledged the wording in the LOI. He said that the concession was made as to what was said. He said that he didn’t think that that precluded the tribunal from reaching the conclusion that alleged protected acts 3 and 4 were made in bad faith, but that that was not something that he was strenuously seeking for the tribunal to conclude. He said that he did not consider that the LOI prevented the tribunal from making a finding that these acts were not done in good faith. However he was not advancing that case.

[341]Ms Simpson said that she noted that the bad faith argument was not advanced by the respondent and she believed that it was not specifically listed as an issue in the LOI. She said that she couldn’t say whether it had been put to the claimant that he made the remarks in bad faith. She said that, therefore, in theory it might nonetheless be okay to consider the issue of bad faith, but that she did not think that it was proper. She added that, if the tribunal did choose to consider it, the tribunal should apply the case of Saad for the test for bad faith, which was referenced in her written submissions, and which we have referred to in our summary of the law.

[342]As to the issue of whether or not it was put to the claimant that he made the disclosures in bad faith, we do not think that it was put to him specifically using the term “bad faith” (either in relation to alleged protected acts 3 and 4 or indeed 1 and 2). However, it was certainly put to the claimant that he was someone who had a propensity to lie, and it was put to him that the allegations which formed the basis of alleged protected acts 3 and 4 were of things that - 60 - never happened, and that he fabricated them. That is the essence of the bad faith test which is about “false” allegations which were dishonestly made. We do therefore consider that the issue was properly put to the claimant. We do not therefore consider that there has been any injustice to the claimant as a result of the case not being properly put to him. We do not, therefore, consider that we are precluded from addressing the bad faith issue on the basis that it was not put to the claimant.

[343]In any case, even if it had not been put to him, the other evidence before us was sufficiently clear for us to conclude unhesitatingly that the claimant not only made false allegations, but that he knowingly and dishonestly did so. Therefore, even if the issue of dishonesty had not been specifically put to the claimant, we do not consider that that would have precluded us from making the findings that he made his alleged protected acts in bad faith.

[344]We turn then to the apparent concession in paragraph 23 of the LOI. First, the fact that it is not made in the respondent’s grounds of resistance does not appear to us to be material; it appears to have been made in the LOI. Whether the person who agreed it was thinking only about the content of the alleged protected acts when it was made, rather than the bad faith element of that test, is immaterial; the concession simply states that it is accepted that they were protected acts.

[345]However, the apparent concession in the LOI is unfortunate given that we have made clear findings in the course of determining the facts relevant to the claim which mean that these alleged protected acts cannot have been done in good faith; we have found that not only were the comments not made but that the claimant knew that they were not made and dishonestly put them forward in his complaints about Ms Rana. Therefore, as a matter of law, they could not be protected acts. Furthermore, whether or not the respondent is “advancing” a bad faith argument or not does not appear to us to be of much weight; we are here to apply the law to the facts that we find; otherwise there will be an injustice.

[346]Notwithstanding the apparent concession by the respondent, therefore, we do not consider that in these circumstances it could possibly be fair or in the interests of justice to hold the respondent to that concession and to declare these two alleged protected acts to be protected acts, when they so obviously were not because they were made in bad faith; and we do not do so. Summary regarding protected acts

[347]In summary, therefore, none of the four alleged protected acts were in fact protected acts. As no protected acts were done, the claimant’s victimisation complaints therefore all fail at the first stage.

[348]Nonetheless, we still go on to consider the substantive merits of the individual alleged victimisation detriments. Substantive victimisation allegations - 61 -a. In or around June 2023, R4 told the Claimant no one else had had trouble with R5, so he should just be firmer with her and “man up”;

b. R4 discouraged the Claimant from making a formal complaint about R5’s discriminatory behaviour. In or around late July 2023 (shortly after Protected Act 2), R4 told the Claimant he would “probably just need to get on with it”, and employment were of no value to the company. R4 told the Claimant that “proceeding with a formal complaint would probably only put [him] on the map, as we’ve never had one of those here".

[349]As we have already found, Ms Hazle did not make the comments alleged in these allegations of detriment, nor did she discourage the claimant from making a formal complaint about Ms Rana. As the factual allegations which are the basis for these complaints have not been established, they fail at the first stage. c. R1/2/3/4 did not take the Claimant’s complaints seriously and did not adequately investigate and deal with those complaints;

[350]For the reasons set out in our analysis of the equivalent alleged detriment in the direct sex discrimination complaints, the respondents did take the claimant’s complaints seriously and did adequately investigate and deal with those complaints. Therefore, the factual basis of this complaint is not made out and it fails at the first stage.

[351]In any event, the way the claimant’s complaints were handled and investigated was consistent with the way the respondent would handle other similar investigations, taking external HR advice at every stage; the decisions as to how the investigation was done in the claimant’s case were not made because the claimant raised the complaints. The respondent’s actions (and those of Mr Scott and Ms Hazle) were not, therefore, “because of” the alleged protected disclosures. This complaint therefore fails for this reason too. d. R1/2/3/4 investigated the Claimant’s output statistics [FBPs: output statistics were investigated two days after the Claimant received the outcome of his grievance against R5, on 31/01/2024 – they were “delved into” and “pulled out” for the first time [270]. The Claimant claims this is evidence of the Respondents looking for a reason to dismiss him (the true reason being his protected acts)];

[352]As we have already found, the respondent did look into the claimant’s output statistics. There is no dispute that this was detrimental treatment to the claimant and for that reason, and because it was only the claimant’s data that was sought and not any other employee’s data, we find that it was a detriment.

[353]Furthermore the decision to look into the claimant’s output statistics was Mr Partington’s. Mr Scott did what Mr Partington asked him to do and Ms Hazle did what Mr Scott asked her to do (and in fact more, as she retrieved the data for Ms Rana and herself too). Mr Scott and Ms Hazle therefore acted because they - 62 - were instructed to do something and not from any other motivation. Indeed, as we have found, Mr Scott did not know the reason why Mr Partington asked him to obtain the output data in relation to the claimant; by extension, Ms Hazle similarly could not have known. Therefore, any complaint that either Mr Scott or Ms Hazle acted in this respect because the claimant had made an alleged protected act must fail.

[354]We turn then to the motivation of the individual who did instigate this process, Mr Partington. Mr Partington has long since left the respondent’s employment and he was not at the tribunal to give evidence himself. Mr Partington, whose primary concern at that time was to ensure that the sale of the respondent went through without hitch, may well, as Mr Scott speculated, have involved himself at this point because of perceptions about problems which might create setbacks for or a delay in the sale of the respondent. However, there is a dearth of information as to precisely why he did this.

[355]What is pertinent is that his concern is unlikely to have been the ongoing working relationship between the claimant and Ms Rana, because he specifically sought the data in relation to the claimant only (and not Ms Rana). Furthermore, such data had never been sought previously in relation to any employee. Furthermore, Mr Partington was aware that the claimant had raised a grievance and that it had not been upheld, as Mr Scott had kept him up-to-date on the progress of the grievance. It may be that he too held the view that the majority of the claimant’s complaints were fictitious, which might be an understandable concern for any manager, but it may also be that he simply knew that the claimant had brought the grievance and it had been turned down; we do not know. Furthermore, the timing of his request followed very closely after the outcome of the claimant’s grievance was delivered on 29 January 2024.

[356]For all these reasons, we consider that the claimant has shown facts from which a court could decide, in the absence of any other explanation, that Mr Partington sought the information about the claimant’s output data because the claimant had brought a grievance (alleged protected act 3). As noted, Mr Partington was not at the tribunal and there is, therefore no other explanation provided as to why he did this, let alone a non-discriminatory explanation.

[357]Therefore, applying the provisions of the burden of proof, we are bound to find that, had protected act 3 been a protected act, the claimant would have succeeded in his complaint that looking into the output data was an act of victimisation. The point is, however, academic, as we found earlier that alleged protected act 3 was not a protected act. e. R1/2/3/4 failed to properly and adequately investigate allegations made against the Claimant by Ms Y;

[358]Neither the respondent nor Mr Scott nor Ms Hazle failed to properly and adequately investigate allegations made against the claimant by Ms Y.

[359]First, Ms Hazle is not an appropriate respondent for the purposes of this complaint, because it was not her responsibility to investigate these allegations; - 63 - the responsibility was Mr Scott’s. Ms Hazle’s role was limited to taking notes at the 16 February 2024 meetings between Mr Scott and the claimant. It follows that there was no failure on her part to properly and adequately investigate the allegations. This complaint, therefore, fails as against Ms Hazle.

[360]As regards Mr Scott, we cross-refer in full to our findings of fact in this respect. However, in summary, the claimant accepted that the majority of the interactions about which Ms Y had complained had taken place (albeit his view of those interactions was different from that of Ms Y). Mr Scott listened to the claimant’s version of events and viewed further evidence produced by the claimant. However, in producing this further evidence, the claimant missed the point; he had already admitted that most of the interactions between him and Ms Y had taken place. Based on this and the evidence before him from the claimant, Mr Scott was entitled to conclude that the claimant had been harassing Ms Y. There was nothing further which he might reasonably have been expected to carry out by way of investigation which would have impacted upon this conclusion. There was, therefore, no failure to properly and adequately investigate the allegations by him.

[361]As the factual allegations of this complaint have not been established, it fails at the first hurdle.

[362]In any event, the reasons as to why Mr Scott investigated in the way he did were not in any way because the claimant made alleged protected acts; he acted in the way he did because, having taken external HR advice, he considered this was the appropriate way to conduct the investigation. f. R1/2/3/4 failed to provide any notes from the Claimant’s investigative meeting on 09 February 2024 at 9am, in relation to Ms Y’s complaints against him;

[363]The notes from the meeting of 9 February 2024 were not provided to the claimant.

[364]There was, however, no failure on the part of Ms Hazle to provide the notes from the 9 February 2024 meeting to the claimant. She was not even the notetaker at that meeting; Mr Wynn was. In any event, it was not her responsibility to oversee the HR process, including as to production of notes of meetings. This complaint, therefore, fails as against Ms Hazle.

[365]Both Mr Wynn and Mr Scott candidly accepted that, with the benefit of hindsight, the notes from that meeting should have been provided to the claimant at the time.

[366]However, the fact that the claimant had done alleged protected acts was no part of the reason why those notes were not provided. The respondent was, at that time, a small organisation with no HR Department of its own and which relied on external HR advice only. There was no advantage to the respondent in not providing the claimant with the notes nor was there any nefarious reason as to why they were not provided. The reality is that, in the context of a small - 64 - organisation, something slipped through the net; the reason the notes were not provided was simply through oversight, not by design. There is no proper basis for drawing any inference that the claimant’s alleged protected acts were any part of the reason why the notes were not provided to the claimant at the time.

[367]This complaint therefore fails. g. R1/2/3/4 disbelieved the Claimant in relation to Ms Y’s complaints against him without proper cause;

[368]Again, Ms Hazle is not an appropriate respondent for the purposes of this complaint, because it was not her responsibility to investigate these complaints or draw conclusions in respect of them; the responsibility was Mr Scott’s. Ms Hazle’s role was limited to taking notes at the 16 February 2024 meetings between Mr Scott and the claimant. The complaint therefore fails against Ms Hazle.

[369]As regards Mr Scott, we cross-refer in full to our findings of fact in this respect. However, in summary, the claimant accepted that the majority of the interactions about which Ms Y had complained had taken place (albeit his view of those interactions was different from that of Ms Y). Mr Scott listened to the claimant’s version of events and viewed further evidence produced by the claimant. However, in producing this further evidence, the claimant missed the point; he had already admitted that most of the interactions between him and Ms Y had taken place. Based on this and the evidence before him, Mr Scott was entitled to conclude that the claimant had been harassing Ms Y. He did have proper cause to disbelieve the claimant’s account that he was not harassing Ms Y. Having viewed the evidence ourselves, we agree with this conclusion.

[370]As Mr Scott did not disbelieve the claimant without proper cause, the factual allegations of this complaint have not been established, and it therefore fails at the first hurdle.

[371]In any event, the reasons as to why Scott reached the conclusion that he did were not in any way because the claimant did alleged protected acts; he reached the conclusion that he did because, having considered the evidence, he genuinely and reasonably believed that the claimant had harassed Ms Y. h. R1/2 dismissed, and R3/4 were party to the decision to dismiss, the Claimant on 16 February 2024;

[372]The decision to dismiss the claimant on 16 February 2024 was Mr Scott’s decision and his decision alone. As Ms Hazle was not one of the decision-makers, she is not an appropriate respondent in relation to this complaint and the complaint therefore fails as against her.

[373]As regards Mr Scott, he did dismiss the claimant, with effect from 16 February 2024. We cross refer to our earlier findings as to the reason for dismissal. We were able to make clear findings that the reason for dismissal was - 65 - the fact that Mr Scott upheld the complaint from Ms Y that the claimant had harassed her. This complaint therefore fails.

[374]Even if we had applied the burden of proof, the claimant has not proved facts from which we could conclude that the reason for dismissal was in any way because of any of his alleged protected acts, and the complaint would similarly have failed. i. R1/2/3/4 failed to afford to the Claimant a right of appeal in respect of his

[375]Once again, Ms Hazle is not an appropriate respondent for the purposes of this complaint, because it was not her decision as to whether or not to offer the claimant a right of appeal in respect of his dismissal; the responsibility was Mr Scott’s and Mr Partington’s. The complaint therefore fails as against Ms Hazle.

[376]The reality is that the decision not to offer the claimant a right of appeal was made by Mr Scott, having again taken and followed advice from HR Dept. That included the production of the text of an email informing the claimant that he would have no right of appeal. Mr Partington then sent that email. However, Mr Partington’s role was no more than a rubber stamping exercise. The decision not to offer the claimant the right of appeal was in reality Mr Scott’s decision, having taken and followed the advice from his external HR provider.

[377]The reason why the claimant was not offered a right of appeal was because he had less than two years’ continuous employment with the respondent and that was the policy which the respondent, on advice from external HR, adopted in relation to the claimant, who had less than two years’ continuous employment and who therefore did not have the right to bring a complaint of unfair dismissal. The reason was nothing to do with the fact the claimant had done alleged protected acts.

[378]This complaint therefore also fails. Summary regarding substantive complaints

[379]All of the claimant’s complaints therefore fail on their substantive merits.

[380]Nonetheless, we still need to consider the jurisdictional issues in relation to time limits. Time limits

[381]The claim was presented to the tribunal on 20 June 2024.

[382]However, the date before which complaints in relation to a particular respondent were prima facie out of time varies in relation to the five different respondents, because the periods spent in ACAS early conciliation varied as between the five different respondents. - 66 -

[383]In relation to the first respondent, ACAS early conciliation commenced on 18 April 2024 and finished on 22 May 2024. Therefore, any discriminatory act/omission which was alleged to have taken place earlier than 19 January 2024 would be prima facie out of time. Therefore, all of the complaints against the first respondent are prima facie out of time except for the following: the direct sex discrimination complaints at paragraphs 18(b), (d) and (e); and the victimisation complaints at paragraphs 24(c), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h) and (i).

[384]In relation to the second respondent and Mr Scott, ACAS early conciliation commenced on 13 May 2024 and finished on 22 May 2024. Therefore, any discriminatory act/omission which was alleged to have taken place earlier than 14 February 2024 would be prima facie out of time. Therefore, all of the complaints against the second respondent and Mr Scott are prima facie out of time except for the following: the direct sex discrimination complaints at paragraphs 18(d) and (e); and the victimisation complaints at paragraphs 24(e), (f), (g), (h) and (i).

[385]In relation to Ms Hazle and Ms Rana, ACAS early conciliation commenced on 13 June 2024 and finished on 13 June 2024. Therefore, any discriminatory act/omission which was alleged to have taken place earlier than 14 March 2024 would be prima facie out of time. Therefore, all of the complaints against Ms Hazle and Ms Rana are prima facie out of time.

[386]As none of the complaints have succeeded, there are no successful in time complaints to which any of the prima facie out of time complaints could be connected as part of conduct extending over a period such that they are deemed to be in time. Therefore, with the exception of the complaints against the first respondent, the second respondent and Mr Scott identified in the paragraphs above (which were presented in time), all of the complaints were presented out of time.

[387]We therefore need to consider whether or not it would be just and equitable to extend time in relation to the out of time complaints. The burden of proof is on the claimant to show that it would be just and equitable to extend time.

[388]The claimant has put forward no reason in his evidence, either in his written statement or in oral evidence, as to why it was not possible to bring his complaint earlier or why it would be just and equitable to extend time. Furthermore, there is nothing in the evidence which we have viewed in these proceedings which is indicative of any such potential reason.

[389]Ms Simpson did not address the matter in her extensive written submissions and all we have is a brief submission made by her in her oral submissions that time should be extended because the claimant waited until after his dismissal, with the dismissal being the catalyst for bringing the claims, which she submitted was “what you would expect”. That is inadequate in its own right as such reasoning could apply to any claim brought after dismissal which involves many out of time complaints dating from an earlier period. Furthermore, it is not the claimant’s evidence; it is merely a submission. - 67 -

[390]We do not, therefore, find that the claimant has discharged the burden of proof of showing that it would be just and equitable to extend time. We do not, therefore, extend time.

[391]The tribunal does not, therefore, have jurisdiction to hear the out of time complaints and they are dismissed.

[392]If the tribunal had had jurisdiction to hear them, they would have failed for the reasons which we have already set out above. Written reasons

[393]After the judge had delivered the reasons for the tribunal’s decision orally, he explained that he would, in a moment, ask the parties whether they wanted the written reasons for the decision and that they would be able to request them either now at the hearing or within 14 days of the judgment being

[394]Before doing so, the judge explained, for the claimant’s benefit, two things. First, he said that, if a party wished to appeal the tribunal’s decision, that party would need the written reasons in order to do so, although he stated that an appeal could only be founded if there was an error of law by the tribunal or if its decision on the facts was perverse; there were no grounds for appeal if a party simply disagreed with the factual findings that the tribunal had made. Secondly, he explained that, if written reasons were produced, they would be published online on the tribunal’s website and that the tribunal had no discretion as to whether or not to do this. He added that the reasons were searchable by name and that the tribunal was aware that potential future employers might carry out such a search. The judge made these remarks because he was concerned about whether it was in the claimant’s own best interests for the written reasons to be produced and consequently published online.

The judge then asked the parties whether they wanted the written reasons.

[396]The claimant said that he did not want the written reasons.

[397]Mr Scott said that he would speak to the other respondents first before making any decision.

[398]On 12 December 2025, however, the claimant applied for written reasons and these written reasons have accordingly been produced. Anonymisation of Ms X and Ms Y

[399]Prior to the end of the hearing, the judge told the parties that the tribunal had discussed whether in any written reasons it should anonymise two particular individuals. He said that, subject to any comments which the parties had, the tribunal was proposing, should there be a request for written reasons, to - 68 - anonymise these individuals, and told them the reasons why it was proposing to do so. Mr Curtis said that the respondents agreed with this proposal. Ms Simpson said that the claimant would probably agree, but she needed more time to think about it. The judge said that, if any party changed its mind on this issue and requested written reasons, that party should also address the matter of this proposed anonymisation in its request for written reasons.

[400]In his request for written reasons of 12 December 2025, the claimant did not address this issue of proposed anonymity.

[401]The tribunal has therefore decided under Rule 49 of the Employment Tribunal Rules to anonymise these two individuals in its written reasons. They are referred to in these written reasons as Ms X and Ms Y.

[402]The reasons for our decision are as follows.

[403]In considering this matter, the tribunal has given full weight to the principle of open justice and the Convention right to freedom of expression. However, in these circumstances, the

Article 8 Convention

rights of the two individuals have far greater weight. Whilst it has been necessary to reference them in order to set out the full reasons as to why we have made the decision which we have, their presence in these reasons is very much as background and context only. Neither of them were named respondents nor were they even witnesses at this tribunal. There is absolutely no public interest in their names being disclosed, nor would anonymisation in any way impede a proper understanding of the written reasons. By contrast, the details relating to them concern material of a sensitive nature to both and, in the case of one of them, include allegations by her of sexual harassment. Furthermore, as already noted, tribunal reasons are published online and are searchable by name.

[404]It is therefore necessary in the interests of justice that their names are anonymised.