Miss M N Bradbury v Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council: 6015499/2024
EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS
Case No 6015499/2024
Between
Miss M N BradburyClaimantBournemouth Christchurch and Poole CouncilRespondent
Before
Employment Judge DawsonRepresenting herself for claimantMr MacPhail (instructed by counsel) for respondentDate 17 March 2026
JUDGMENT
[1]The claimant was unfairly dismissed by the respondent.a. The claimant is awarded a basic award of £3360.b. The compensatory award is reduced to nil.[2]The claim of wrongful dismissal (breach of contract) is dismissed.[3]The claimant’s claim of failure to make reasonable adjustments succeeds in that the respondent failed to take reasonable steps in respect of her attendance at team meetings in October and November 2023 and March 2024 and is awarded;a. an award for injury to feelings of £1140,b. interest of £202.[4]The total amount payable to the claimant is £4702. RESERVED REASONS ON REMEDY The judgment on liability was delivered orally.[2]In terms of the basic award, the claimant had 16 years of unbroken service from 2008 to 2014. She was aged 41 or over for all those years and the maximum weekly pay which can be taken into account is £700. Therefore, the claimant is entitled to a basic award of 16 x 1.5 x £700= £16,800. 20% of that amount is £3360.[3]I have reduced the compensatory award to nil for the reasons given in the liability judgment.[4]The only other claim made is for injury to feelings.[5]In his closing submissions on remedy, Mr MacPhail submitted that there was no evidence in the claimant’s witness statement as to her injury to feelings in respect of the three meetings in question and, he says, it is clear from the contemporaneous evidence that the claimant was entirely unconcerned about her inability to access the room at the Colliton Club. He points out that no mention was made of the difficulties in any of the supervision meetings, there was no grievance on the part of the claimant and if one considers the evidence at page 244 of the hearing bundle, on 14 November 2024 the claimant was writing to Mr Gosling that she was unwilling to attend meetings where certain colleagues were present. That would include team meetings. He also points out that the claimant seldom attended team meetings even when they were held in accessible places (see page 815 of the bundle).[6]In those circumstances, he submits that there should be no award for injury to feelings.[7]There are two further issues of fact which Mr MacPhail submits I should determine at this stage. The first is whether the claimant was told that she should not attend the three meetings. The claimant said that she was told that she should not attend by both Ms Denny and Mr Gosling. That allegation is denied by them.[8]If the claimant had been told by Mr Gosling that she should not attend the meetings at the Colliton Club, it would be surprising that on 31 October 2023 Mr Gosling wrote to the claimant stating: On another matter- we held the meeting at the Colliton Club last weekthis as a good venue though we are also mindful there is a short flight of steps- there is no lift. I think you would be ok with these steps, but I don’t actually know for sure. However, Nicky is looking to have the meeting this month in the downstairs conference room W1w4 by the entrance at the rear of County Hall (p195).[9]In my judgment page 195 does not support the claimant’s version of events and does support Mr Gosling’s denial. The claimant did not reply to that email suggesting that she had been told she could not attend the meetings. I do not find that the claimant was told that she could not attend meetings in the Colliton Club.[10]That leads to the second disputed issue, which is whether Mr Gosling told the claimant that she could not attend the hearing by video. Mr MacPhail points out that the injury to feelings award would likely be assessed differently if Mr Gosling expressly told the claimant that she could not attend by video, rather than simply failed to offer such a facility.[11]In that respect my note of the evidence differed from the respondent’s note and I have therefore listened to the recording of the proceedings which records the following exchange (with some hesitations etc removed): a. I asked Mr Gosling about paragraph 22 of the claimant’s Further Particulars of Claim (page 63). That paragraph states[22]The Claimant was then asked on a number of occasions by MG and ND if she would mind not attending the team meetings as they could not find a venue that she could access and the venue they wanted to use consisted of a flight of stairs. The Claimant did ask if she could attend online, and she was told that this was not an option and the answer was no. This did make her feel excluded and undervalued at times, but they had one team meeting during the Easter holidays where a venue was found at Monkton Park and the Claimant was able to attend. b. Mr Gosling stated that he disagreed with the first part, he said that the claimant was not asked not to attend meetings and that he wanted her at meetings. I then asked Mr Gosling whether the claimant had asked to attend online and he had refused the request. His answer was “I did say that, we were in lockdown doing hybrid meetings, I wanted everybody to try and get together as a team once a month for two hours”. c. I wanted to make sure that I had properly understood Mr Gosling’s answer and asked him “was there an express request?”. He answered “I would have said no to Ms Bradbury as I would have said no to others” d. Again, I asked him, “was there an actual request?” and he said he could not remember. 12. The claimant’s witness statement states that when she requested to join the meeting via Teams her request was denied and she was told “we are not doing that anymore”. She says that she informed Mr Gosling that she was unhappy with the exclusion. 13. On 14 December 2023, the claimant met with Mr Gosling to carry out the “BCP Talent and Performance Enablement Review” (page 260). One of the sections was “Wellbeing – thinking about your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing and any support needed”. The claimant wrote “I am ok with my set up at home. I look back now and how I was prior to covid and the stress that I was under when in the office, illness in the office- I am glad to avoid this”. She did not make any reference to needing support to attend team meetings such as being able to attend by video or that she had felt excluded from the meetings at the Colliton Club. 14. I find that the reality of the situation fell somewhere between the positions of the claimant and the respondent. In my judgment, entirely justifiably, the respondent had a firm position of wanting people to attend team meetings in person. Although, as I set out in my liability judgment, people were excused attendance at the team meetings if they had other meetings to attend, there was an expectation that if people were attending the meetings they did so in person. Whether or not Ms Bradbury made an express request to attend by video, I am satisfied that Mr Gosling had made clear to her, as a member of the team, that she was expected to attend in person and that, combined with the lack of any offer to the claimant that she could attend by video, would have made the respondent’s position very clear. However, I also find that the claimant did not really want to attend team meetings and was not very dissatisfied when she was not able to attend the meetings at the Colliton Club either in person or by video. If she had been dissatisfied, it seems to me that she would have made that point clear at the time and there would be contemporaneous evidence; in particular she would have raised it in the Performance Enablement Review. The claimant says she is not the type of person who would raise grievances and I accept that but that is different to not raising it in answer to a question about well-being when the claimant wrote that she was glad to avoid the stress that she was under when in the office. 15. In assessing the injury to feelings in relation to the three meetings it is necessary for me to only compensate for that injury to feelings. I have no doubt that the process of being suspended and ultimately dismissed was extremely distressing for the claimant. The claimant may also have been unhappy about her belief that the team office was located too far from the car park for her to be able to walk to it. However, given my findings of fact, there can be no compensation awarded to the claimant in those respects. 16. The claimant has asked me to take into account the letter of 10 June 2025 from Dr Beak and I have considered it carefully, however it is a description of the impact of all the issues which the claimant has had at work since 2023. I asked the claimant whether she wanted the opportunity to obtain further medical evidence but she did not. The Law on Assessing Injury to Feelings 17. The general principles in relation to the appropriate award for injury to feelings are set down in Prison Service v Johnson [1997] IRLR 162 and include that;a. awards are compensatory and should be just to both parties. They should compensate fully without punishing the discriminator.b. Awards should not be too low, as that would diminish respect for the policy of the anti-discrimination legislation. Society has condemned discrimination and awards must ensure that it is seen to be wrong. On the other hand, awards should be restrained, as excessive awards could be seen as the way to untaxed riches.c. Awards should bear some broader general similarity to the range of awards in personal injury cases – not to any particular type of personal injury but the whole range of such awards.d. Tribunals should take into account the value in everyday life of the sum they have in mind, by reference to purchasing power or by reference to earnings.e. Tribunals should bear in mind the need for public respect for the level of awards made. 18. In Eddie Stobart Ltd v Graham [2025] IRLR 334, the EAT held: 38. As I am considering a case where the evidence of injury before the ET was sparse, it is worth asking how much evidence is needed to justify an award at all. The following points can be made. 39. First, there can be no award of compensation is there is no evidence of injury. As the EAT said at paragraph 90 of Cannock, an award “is not automatically to be made whenever unlawful discrimination is proved or admitted”. There must be some evidence of injury to the non-exhaustive range of feelings discussed in Vento. The EAT’s judgment in Cowie and others v Scottish Fire and Rescue Service [2022] IRLR 913 (at paragraph 91) provides an example of an appellate conclusion that it was permissible for a tribunal to make no award where the claimants had “failed to adduce evidence of any injury to feelings such as would warrant an award under this head”. (Further, at paragraph 92 of that judgment, the EAT accepted that “upset” was “the best evidence of any injury to feelings”, albeit that it was unrelated to the conduct complained of in that case.) 40. Second, while tribunals should avoid making assumptions, it can properly be borne in mind that in every kind of discrimination case a claimant will usually suffer some injury to feelings. As the EAT put it in London Borough of Hackney v Adams [2003] IRLR 402 (at paragraph 11), with my added emphasis: “… Sometimes such injury will be the almost inevitable concomitant of the discrimination having occurred. For example, it can readily be assumed where someone has suffered an act of race or sex discrimination that will by its very nature have caused injury to feelings: it is demeaning to the individual and offensive to his or her dignity to be so treated. A tribunal will readily infer some injury to feelings from the simple fact of the discrimination having occurred. Such injury may of course be compounded by the particular manner in which the discriminatory conduct itself is made manifest. For example, harassment over a lengthy period will plainly result in more considerable distress than a single act of discrimination and should be compensated for accordingly. There will, however, have to be evidence of the nature of the discriminatory conduct.” 41. The above suggests that the manner of discrimination can provide a basis for inferring the level of upset it has caused. This brings me to my third point: so long as the tribunal does not lose sight of the fact that it is compensating a claimant for the injury suffered, rather than the manner of the discrimination, the latter can be a useful guide to inferring the former when evidence is otherwise sparse. Of course the tribunal must take care not to allow its feelings of indignation to inflate the award, but having regard to the manner of discrimination can provide a control mechanism. 19. I have considered the bands of compensation set down by the Court of Appeal in Vento v Chief Constable West Yorkshire [2003] IRLR 102 and the updated awards set down in the 7th addendum to “Presidential Guidance: Employment Tribunal Awards for injury to Feelings and Psychiatric Injury Following De Souza v Vinci”. 20. In respect of the lower band, awards of between £1200 - £11,700 are appropriate for less serious cases, such as where the act of discrimination is an isolated or one-off occurrence. 21. I have considered the latest edition of the Judicial College Guidelines in respect of personal injury awards. In respect of minor injuries where there is a complete recovery within seven days an award of a few hundred pounds to £840 is appropriate. Where there is a complete recovery within 28 days an award of between £840 and £1680 is appropriate. The law on ACAS uplifts/ reductions 22. Section 207A Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 provides … (3) If, in the case of proceedings to which this section applies, it appears to the employment tribunal that—(a) the claim to which the proceedings relate concerns a matter to which a relevant Code of Practice applies,(b) the employee has failed to comply with that Code in relation to that matter, and(c) that failure was unreasonable, the employment tribunal may, if it considers it just and equitable in all the circumstances to do so, reduce any award it makes to the employee by no more than 25%.[23]The code relied upon by the respondent is the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures. It provides “32. If it is not possible to resolve a grievance informally employees should raise the matter formally and without unreasonable delay with a manager who is not the subject of the grievance. This should be done in writing and should set out the nature of the grievance.” Conclusions[24]The claimant is entitled to a basic award of £3360.[25]No compensatory award is made.[26]In respect of injury to feelings, I do not think that the argument of the respondent- that I have received no evidence about the claimant’s injury to feelings - is fully accurate. I have received evidence about the claimant’s injury to feelings but it does not differentiate between the injury suffered because of the meetings at the Colliton Club and the other matters that the claimant complains about. I agree with respondent that I have not received any evidence which expressly states that a certain amount of distress or upset was felt because of the meetings at the Colliton Club.[27]Having regard to in Eddie Stobart Ltd v Graham, I find that it is more likely than not, given that the claimant was disabled and unable to manage the stairs at the Colliton Club, that there would have been a degree of indignation and upset felt by her when she became aware that the meetings had been arranged at a venue which was inaccessible to her and no alternative arrangements had been made for her. That upset would, however, have been significantly reduced by the fact that the claimant did not particularly want to join team meetings anyway. The claimant was not sufficiently concerned about matters to raise them in writing or in her reviews with Mr Gosling.[28]Although this is not a one-off act of discrimination (the discrimination having occurred in respect of three meetings), I consider that the degree of upset to the claimant was at the lowest end of the scale. In my judgment the appropriate amount for injury to feelings is £1200. In awarding that amount I acknowledge that there were three acts of discrimination, however, had there been only one meeting which the claimant could not have attended I would not have awarded as much as £1200. Whilst I acknowledge that in those circumstances I would have been going below the bottom of the Vento guidance, that guidance is based on what would be a proper recognition of the injury to feelings. In my judgment the sum of £1200 would not have been a proper recognition of the injury to the claimant’s feelings if she could not attend a single meeting- it would have over-compensated her.[29]I must, then, consider whether the award should be reduced because the claimant failed to raise a grievance. I was not taken to any authority on this point. In my judgment the law should be slow to encourage people to raise grievances about every matter which might, ultimately, lead to a claim. It is not in the interests of good industrial relations for employees to feel the need to raise grievances simply to protect their position in the future. However, in this case if the claimant had raised a grievance after the November 2023 meeting, she may have avoided the discrimination which took place in respect of the March 2024 meeting. Had she done so, the compensation which the respondent has been ordered to pay her would be less. Instead the claimant said nothing to the respondent until she was issuing her claim form. On the other hand, it is the respondent’s responsibility not to discriminate against the claimant and it is an unattractive argument that there is some sort of onus on the claimant to tell the respondent that it should discriminate against her.[30]Weighing those matters I am persuaded that it is just and equitable to reduce the claimant’s award in this case. However, it is not just and equitable to reduce it by 25%. The appropriate amount is 5%. Thus, the award is reduced to £1140[31]The claimant is entitled to interest at the rate of 8%. I consider the appropriate start date for interest to run is 1 January 2024 which is approximately midway between the first and last acts of discrimination. That is a period of 806 days. Therefore, the calculation is (0.08/365) x 806 x 1140 = £202 (rounding up).
REASONS
Reasons for the judgment having been given orally at the hearing, written reasons will not be provided unless a request was made by either party at the hearing or a written request is presented by either party within 14 days of the sending of this written record of the decision. If written reasons are provided they may be placed online.