Judgment approved by the court Vaultex UK Ltd v Bialas responses. We note also that, in its self-direction as to the law, the tribunal referred to an authority to the effect that the Burchell requirement for a reasonable investigation does not mean that an employer is necessarily always bound to pursue every line of enquiry that the employee asks it to take up. 42. It appears to us, therefore, that, indeed properly taking that approach, the tribunal’s ultimate conclusion was that the respondent’s investigation was reasonably sufficient and the dismissal was not unfair in that regard. It was ultimately found to be unfair solely by reference to the matter of sanction. The tribunal’s decision cannot, therefore, be defended on the basis that the dismissal was found by it, in any event, to be unfair because of an inadequate investigation. 43. The claimant in discussion this morning did accept that reading of the decision as correct, but maintained that the tribunal ought to have found that the dismissal was procedurally unfair. Ms Clarke pointed out that there was no cross-appeal to that effect, but in any event we do not think that the tribunal erred by failing to find that there was procedural unfairness in this regard. Issues of this type must also be considered taking a band of reasonable responses approach. The respondent, it appears from the tribunal’s decision, understood and accepted that the claimant had found the post on a jokes website, and that it was his case that there was nothing to alert him to the fact that it might be unsuitable or offensive, in particular because he said he found it in the clean section. The tribunal was entitled, despite apparently having some misgivings, ultimately to take the view that it was not unfair for the respondent to have failed to independently verify this particular element of the claimant’s case. 44. As we have discussed, the fact that the tribunal gave itself a correct self-direction as to the band of reasonable responses approach, and to beware of the substitution error, and asserted that it had taken that approach in its conclusions, does not render its decision immune from challenge. We have to decide whether, on a fair reading of the decision as a whole, it did, nevertheless, fall into error in that way and/or reached a decision that was perverse. © EAT 2024 Page 17 [2024] EAT 19

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