Hargreaves v Manchester Grammar School

Where misconduct allegations may have career-changing consequences, an employer must conduct a particularly careful and even-handed investigation. The statutory question nevertheless remains whether the employer acted within the band of reasonable responses under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

An employer must ensure a fair process and must not present an incomplete or misleading case to the disciplinary decision-maker. It may, however, reasonably treat evidence as immaterial where potential witnesses had no direct view of the disputed interaction and could not assist either side. The employee's failure to seek further enquiries is relevant to the overall assessment, although it does not transfer the employer's duty to secure a fair investigation.

The claimant, an art and design teacher with no prior disciplinary record, was summarily dismissed after the school found that he had physically assaulted a pupil during a crowded corridor incident. The claimant denied the allegation and maintained that he had merely pulled the pupil back by a rucksack handle.

The Manchester Employment Tribunal dismissed his unfair-dismissal and wrongful-dismissal claims in a judgment sent on 30 March 2017, [2017] UKET 2404445/2016. It held that the investigation, disciplinary process and dismissal fell within the range of reasonable responses.

On appeal, the claimant challenged the treatment of evidence from an office worker and two pupils who said that they had seen nothing untoward. The central issue was whether the Tribunal had erred in treating the employer's failure to pursue or disclose that evidence as consistent with a fair investigation.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Tribunal had correctly directed itself that allegations capable of damaging an employee's future career require a particularly careful investigation. That heightened context informs, but does not replace, the band-of-reasonable-responses assessment under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

2. The perversity challenge failed. The Tribunal had not confused the evidence of the two office staff members or misunderstood the location and context of the incident. It was entitled to find that the disputed physical interaction lasted moments amid a crowded and noisy situation, and that only one witness placed the actual interaction near the office worker's desk.

3. The employer's investigation concerned the particular conflicting accounts given by the claimant and the pupil. It had interviewed the three proposed witnesses. The Tribunal was entitled to conclude that they had no direct view of that specific interaction and that their evidence, that they had seen nothing, could reasonably be regarded as immaterial. The conclusion was not based merely on an assumption that disclosure would have made no difference; it was that the employer had reasonably concluded that the evidence could not assist the claimant or the disciplinary panel.

4. The employer retained the obligation to ensure a fair process and to avoid giving the disciplinary panel an incomplete or misleading picture. However, the Tribunal could take account of the claimant's knowledge of the potential witnesses and his failure, with representation, to request further enquiries. That was relevant to the overall assessment and did not impermissibly shift the employer's obligation onto him.

5. The Tribunal's conclusion that the investigation and process were fair was open to it. The Employment Appeal Tribunal was therefore bound to dismiss the appeal.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Appeal dismissed. The Tribunal upheld the Employment Tribunal's conclusion that the dismissal was fair.
• Manchester Employment Tribunal: Dismissed the claims for unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal in a judgment sent on 30 March 2017, [2017] UKET 2404445/2016.