“8.40. … It is important to note that when the Claimant eventually obtained copies of the e-mails from her anonymous source in December and was able to provide them to the police, it took very few days for the police to understand the true position and accept that the Claimant was not harassing [P]. The key piece of information was the assertion by [P] in April that only [P], her father and the Respondent could know a particular address. As the investigation had shown that the Claimant had not accessed the information held by the Respondent, the police looked to the only other possible sources of the information and concluded that the address and other information was being published by [P] herself. The Tribunal has been informed by the Claimant that [P] has now been formally cautioned by the police. The Tribunal is satisfied that from the beginning of September 2010 onwards the Claimant was increasingly frustrated and angered by her perception that the Respondent was refusing to assist her by releasing the e-mails. This frustration and anger did not assist in maintaining the Claimant’s health.”
“[M] told John in September this year there were various emails between the woman she was accused of harassing and Caroline Silliss. [M] said these emails were clearing her of the stalking but Caroline refused to give her a copy of the email. If she had a copy at the time she could have passed them to the police, who would [have] cleared her and dropped the case. [M] told John she now has the emails and the case has been dropped. [M] continued by saying she found out the senior management team were aware of these emails and she feels they have been mocking her. She said they could [have] taken them to the police and cleared her but they wouldn’t. [M] said she has found the whole thing very disturbing and stressful.”
“8.58. Mr Whitwell asked for further information regarding the legal proceedings that had been referred to by the Claimant and these were provided through her trade union representative on4 January 2011 . The Tribunal has seen the notes prepared by Mr Whitwell prior to making his decision. He noted that he had received 19 pages of written submissions from the Claimant together with a bundle of e-mails. He decided that it was not necessary to read them or consider them beyond having negligible additional value. He decided that the real cause of the [Claimant’s] condition was her own lifestyle choice of engaging in a social network and that the Respondent could not be responsible for any consequences. Mr Whitwell took the case number of the legal proceedings provided by the Claimant and made inquiries at the Royal Courts of Justice. He was told that the proceedings were brought by someone called Deeming and without seeking to obtain any clarification from the Claimant, assumed that she had been lying. The proceedings were in the name of Deeming but if Mr Whitwell had inquired with the Claimant he would have been told that the proceedings involved her as well. Mr Whitwell decided to dismiss the Claimant. The decision was notified to the Claimant by a letter dated6 January 2011 .”
“8.65. Throughout the proceedings the Tribunal found that the Claimant was emotional and prone to overreaction to facts and matters given in evidence. The Tribunal noted that throughout the relevant time the Claimant was under a great deal of stress arising from what turned out to be unjust accusations that she was stalking [P]. In all she was arrested by the police on 31 occasions although she was never charged with any offence. She was persistently under suspicion. The Claimant believes that members of the Respondents staff, and in particular CS, believed that she was stalking [P] and there is some justification for the Claimant holding this belief. The Claimant believed that the Respondent was either unable or unwilling to assist her in establishing that she was innocent of the allegations being made against her and as a result the Claimant lost all faith in the Respondent. She distrusted almost everything the Respondent did and would place unjustified interpretations on its actions. It is for that reason on numerous occasions relatively insignificant facts or matters were described by the Claimant as goading her or mocking her.”
“10. The Tribunal finds that the Respondent has acted unreasonably in treating the reason for the dismissal as sufficient reason. The size and resources of the Respondent are sufficient to have an expectation that all resources and procedures were available to it. The Respondent dismissed the Claimant because of her sickness absence record. The Respondent did not cause the illness that caused the Claimant to be absent from work. She suffered from reactive depression at the relevant time and it has previously been determined that this was a disability. The reactive depression was caused by two factors. Between January and April 2010 it was partly caused by a reaction to an operation on the Claimant’s mouth and partly caused by her personal problems arising out of allegations from [P] that the Claimant was harassing her. After April 2010 the reactive depression was caused exclusively by her personal problems. However, the Claimant continued to suffer reactive depression and to have it aggravated by reason of the Respondents failure to release information in its possession that would have removed the cause of the Claimant’s reactive depression. This has been clearly established because when the information in question was eventually available to the police (and not from the Respondent) the Claimant’s innocence was established. The Tribunal has been referred to the decision in London Fire and Civil Defence Authority v Betty[1994] IRLR 384 . The Respondent asserts that in accordance with that case the question of whether the Respondent was responsible for the Claimants illness was ‘tangential’ to the question of fairness. The Tribunal is mindful of the decision in Royal Bank of Scotland v McAdie[2008] ICR 1087 CA which makes it clear that the responsibility of the employer in causing an employee’s illness may be a factor that can be taken into account when deciding on the fairness of the dismissal. The case overruled Betty in so far as it held that the employers responsibility for the incapacity of the Claimant was irrelevant to the issue of fairness. The Court accepted that in such circumstances it might be necessary to go the extra mile by being more proactive including putting up with a longer period of the sickness absence. 11. In the present case the Tribunal cannot ignore the fact that the Respondent held information that was clearly vital in clearing the Claimant of allegations of stalking [P]. Those allegations had caused the Claimant very considerable distress. The Tribunal is unaware of anything that would have restricted the Claimant from releasing the information. The Tribunal was made aware that as a matter of policy the Respondent would not notify employees of complaints when preliminary inquiries had exonerated the employee as happened with the Claimant. But this did not operate to prevent disclosure and in the event that a formal investigation was taken forward the Tribunal assumes that any affected employee would be provided with full details of the complaint so that a full response could be made. 12. Further, once the Claimant became aware that e-mails existed, she persistently asked for them to be released or taken into account. Her requests, albeit made in emotional terms on many occasions, appear to have been ignored. Worse, when she sought to bring them to the attention of Mr Whitwell who had the responsibility to decide whether the Claimant should be dismissed, he ignored the information provided to him and decided the question purely on the basis that the Claimant had been absent. He dismissed her personal problems as being the Claimant’s own fault for being involved in a social networking website. Further, Mr Whitwell undertook further inquiries into the legal proceedings that had been referred to by the Claimant and obtained information from the Royal Courts of Justice. When the information he received did not appear to accord with what he had been told by the Claimant, rather than check the issue with the Claimant he simply determined that the Claimant had been lying. In the view of the Tribunal his actions make the dismissal procedurally unfair as well as substantively unfair.”
“… It seems to us that there must be cases where the fact that the employer is in one sense or another responsible for an employee’s incapacity is, as a matter of common sense and common fairness, relevant to whether, and if so when, it is reasonable to dismiss him for that incapacity. It may, for example, be necessary in such a case to ‘go the extra mile’ in finding alternative employment for such an employee, or to put up with a longer period of sickness absence than would otherwise be reasonable. … Thus it must be right that the fact that an employer has caused the incapacity in question, however culpably, cannot preclude him for ever from effecting a fair dismissal. If it were otherwise, employers would in such cases be obliged to retain on their books indefinitely employees who were incapable of any useful work. Employees who have been injured as a result of a breach of duty by their employers are entitled to compensation in the ordinary courts, which in an appropriate case will include compensation for lost earnings and lost earning capacity: tribunals must resist the temptation of being led by sympathy for the employee into including granting by way of compensation for unfair dismissal what is in truth an award of compensation for injury. We also agree with Morison J in sounding a note of caution about how often it will be necessary or appropriate for a tribunal to undertake an inquiry into the employer’s responsibility for the original illness or accident, at least where that is genuinely in issue: its concern will be with the reasonableness of the employer’s conduct on the basis of what he reasonably knew or believed at the time of dismissal, and for that purpose a definitive decision on culpability or causation may be unnecessary. … it is important to focus not, as such, on the question of that responsibility but on the statutory question of whether it was reasonable for the bank, ‘in the circumstances’ (which of course include the bank’s responsibility for her illness), to dismiss her for that reason. On ordinary principles, that question falls to be answered by reference to the situation as it was at the date that the decision was taken. Thus the question which the Tribunal should have asked itself was ‘was it reasonable for the bank to dismiss Mrs McAdie on22 December 2004 , in the circumstances as they then were, including the fact that their mishandling of the situation had led to her illness?’ ”