Reporting a colleague’s bullying of other staff can be whistleblowing, and it can protect you from being pushed out for raising it.
“WhistleblowingMaking a disclosure about wrongdoing in your workplace, such as a health and safety risk, a criminal act, or a miscarriage of justice. If the disclosure qualifies as protected, the law gives you signi... detrimentAny action your employer takes that puts you at a disadvantage, short of dismissal. In a whistleblowing or discrimination context, being moved to a worse role, excluded from meetings, or given an unfa... and automatic unfair dismissalA dismissal that's automatically treated as unfair, regardless of how long you've worked somewhere. This applies to reasons like whistleblowing, asserting a statutory right, health and safety, or preg... upheld; £116,085 awarded across three heads of claim.”
Reporting a colleague's bullyingRepeated, unreasonable behaviour towards you at work that undermines you or damages your dignity, such as persistent criticism, exclusion, humiliation, or intimidation. Bullying on its own is not auto... of other staff, not just bullying aimed at you, can be a protected disclosureThe legal term for a qualifying whistleblowing report. For a disclosure to be protected it must relate to specific categories of wrongdoing, you must reasonably believe it is true, and in most cases i... that protects you if your employer retaliates.
- Write down what you reported, when you raised it, and who you told, any time a colleague's treatment of others concerns you.
- Silence or no response from your employer after you raise a serious concern is not neutral. Record it, it can matter later.
- Individual managers can be held personally liable for detriment you experience after whistleblowing, not just the company itself.
The situation
A subsidiary CEO at a small group of start-up companies began receiving complaints from staff about the bullying, aggressive conduct of another subsidiary's CEO. She raised it with the group CEO by message and email, describing colleagues being reduced to tears and publicly undermined on calls. She heard nothing back. Days later, the colleague she had named as distressed resigned. Separately, she queried why the company was telling investors it had HMRC approval for a tax-relief investment scheme when it did not, a claim a different court later found to be false and to have induced at least one investor to buy shares. After raising these concerns, she experienced a course of detrimental treatment and resigned with immediate effect.
What the tribunal found
The tribunal found that raising concerns about a colleague's bullying of staff, and about the false tax-relief claims, were both protected disclosures. Several acts of detrimental treatment she experienced afterwards succeeded against the company and, in a number of instances, jointly against the group CEO and the Chief People Officer personally. Her claim that she had been constructively and automatically unfairly dismissed for making these disclosures also succeeded. The tribunal ordered compensation across three heads. Unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... cost the company £97,361, a base compensatory figure of £77,889 (also owed jointly by the CEO and Chief People Officer, without any uplift) increased by 25% against the company alone for its failure to follow the ACASThe Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. A public body that provides free, impartial guidance on workplace rights and disputes, and runs the mandatory early conciliation process before any ... Code on disciplinary and grievanceA formal complaint raised by an employee against their employer, triggering a legal obligation to investigate and respond. procedures. Injury to feelingsA head of compensation in discrimination claims that recognises the distress and hurt caused by discriminatory treatment, separate from any financial loss. The amount is assessed using the Vento guide... added £10,000, owed jointly by the CEO and Chief People Officer, and a further, separate act of detriment added £8,724, owed jointly by all four respondents. Added correctly, without double-counting the base and uplifted versions of the same unfair dismissal award, the total the claimant was awarded across every head is £116,085.
The same pattern of being frozen out after speaking up runs through our case study on Turner v Wemms Education Unlimited, where a resignation over that treatment was also upheld as constructive dismissalWhen your employer's behaviour is so serious that you feel you have no choice but to resign, the law may treat that resignation as a dismissal. The most common basis is a fundamental breach of the imp....
Cameron-Peck v Ethical Social Group Ltd & Others. Case 2415271/2021. Employment Tribunal (Manchester). 26 January 2024.