Your employer can’t skip a fair process just because they’re sure you did it

The situation

The owner of a small pub, who was also the manager, spent the New Year reviewing months of till records against CCTV footage himself. He suspended the bartender by phone and letter, describing a vague 'anomaly' and a privacy issue without saying exactly what she was accused of. Two days later, at her own suggestion, he visited her at home instead of having her come in, and spent around ten to fifteen minutes going through what he had found. Less than two hours after he left, he dismissed her by text message, then reported her to the police and a local pub-watch scheme; no prosecution followed.

What the tribunal found

The tribunal found that the employer genuinely and reasonably believed she had committed misconduct, and that dismissal was a response a reasonable employer could have reached on the substance. That satisfies the first two limbs of the Burchell testThe standard a tribunal uses to decide whether a misconduct dismissal was fair: did your employer genuinely believe you were guilty, did they have reasonable grounds for that belief, and did they carr..., genuine belief, reasonably held. But the process was so flawed that the dismissal was still unfair under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996The primary piece of legislation setting out employees rights in the UK, including the right not to be unfairly dismissed, the right to a written statement of employment particulars, and rights relati.... He never told her in writing what she was specifically accused of. He didn't show her the evidence beforehand, either. At the meeting itself, he didn't remind her of her right to bring someone with her. Afterwards, he gave her no way to appeal at all. The tribunal treated these as basic and fundamental failures to follow the ACAS Code of PracticeOfficial guidance issued by ACAS on how disciplinary and grievance procedures should be run. It is not law, but tribunals take it into account, and a failure to follow it can result in any award being... on Disciplinary and GrievanceA formal complaint raised by an employee against their employer, triggering a legal obligation to investigate and respond. Procedures that could not be excused because the business was small.

Belief and grounds are only two thirds of the standard. See what the third limb, a reasonable investigation, actually requires, and what happens when an employer skips the investigation stage altogether.