Judgment approved by the court
Vaultex UK Ltd v Bialas
that not dismissing the claimant would have in terms of the signal it would send regarding the
respondent’s commitment to those policies.
34.
All of that being so, she submitted, not only had the tribunal taken the wrong approach by
substituting its own view of the seriousness of the claimant’s conduct for that of the respondent itself.
But, further, no reasonable tribunal could conclude that to apply the sanction of dismissal was outside
the band of reasonable responses. So the appeal should be allowed and a decision that the dismissal was
fair substituted.
35.
The claimant, resisting this appeal, reminds us in his skeleton that we can only intervene if there
is an error of law. He submits that the tribunal correctly stated the law and restated it in its conclusions,
in particular, in relation to the band of reasonable responses and not substituting its own view. It reached
a conclusion that it was entitled to reach on all the facts of the case, that the sanction of dismissal was
outside the band of reasonable responses for the reasons that it gave.
36.
In particular, the claimant argues that his attitude, in the course of the disciplinary process, was
properly regarded by the tribunal as a relevant consideration when considering that question. He notes
the tribunal’s citation of Henderson v London Borough of Hackney [2011] EWCA Civ 1518 in that
regard. He refers to the tribunal’s findings that the respondent accepted that he had co-operated with the
process, apologised, shown remorse and offered to undertake retraining. He submits that the tribunal
was entitled to find that in all those circumstances dismissal was beyond the bounds of the band of
reasonable responses. Its decision could not be said by the EAT to be perverse. In his skeleton, the
claimant also advances a further particular argument, a premise of which is that the tribunal found, or
also found, the dismissal to be procedurally unfair and was entitled to do so, so that its decision should,
in any event, stand for that reason.
37.
At the hearing today, the claimant sought to introduce a Wikipedia article and to show us a
figurine. Neither of these, he confirmed, were introduced in the internal disciplinary process or before
© EAT 2024
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[2024] EAT 19