Judgment approved by the court Vaultex UK Ltd v Bialas particular passage is in terms what Mr Babbage did make of the apology and/or whether his view was one that it was reasonably open to him to take. 54. The claimant points to the tribunal’s citation, in its self-direction as to the law at [19], of the Court of Appeal’s observation in Henderson, that the attitude of an employee where trust and confidence is an important part of the work is an important factor. We note that the tribunal relied on that citation in support of the proposition that the reasonableness of a dismissal for sending offensive images or jokes may depend in part on the employee’s attitude to their conduct and whether the employer can trust them not to repeat it. 55. As to that, we observe that, in a case where the conduct is something for which a reasonable employer could, in principle, dismiss, but the employee has relied in the disciplinary process upon his apology, expression of remorse and/or willingness to retrain in support of his plea for a lesser sanction, then it may be open to a tribunal to find that, if these things were not fairly considered by the employer, then that affects the fairness of the dismissal. But that does not mean that an employer which is found has considered such matters will necessarily act unfairly if, having taken them into account, it nevertheless decides to dismiss. 56. As Ms Clarke pointed out, the tribunal in the present case found that these features were specifically considered and taken into account by Mr Babbage. If the tribunal considered that these features in this case also pointed towards the conclusion that dismissal was beyond the band of reasonable responses, the tribunal did not, in this particular passage, explain why. However, this is an aspect to which we will return when we come to the tribunal’s fourth and final reason. 57. But turning next to the third reason, at [55], this relates to the claimant’s long service and clean prior record. The tribunal appeared here to be addressing a suggestion made during the hearing that there was a blemish on the claimant’s record, for the reason there described. But the tribunal immediately identified that this could not have been a view affecting the decision to dismiss, as the © EAT 2024 Page 20 [2024] EAT 19