A tribunal has ordered Sea Sanctuary to pay a former employee more than £14,500, after it found she had been discriminated against.
The Cornish mental health charity was found to have dismissed its former employee in August 2021 on grounds of her ongoing ill health without holding a disciplinary hearing.
As a result, it was ordered to pay £12,000 for injury to the claimant’s feelings arising from her dismissal plus other costs.
Sea Sanctuary closed at the end of January this year after an unsuccessful fundraising attempt to raise enough money to remain open.
Tribunal findings
At the liability hearing on 20 and 21 February 2023, the tribunal found that the claimant had been discriminated against due to her disability.
It found the claimant’s dismissal arose from her disability and was not objectively justified.
“The respondent had a non-discriminatory alternative to dismissing the claimant in the circumstances. It should have run a written disciplinary process which would have enabled the claimant to participate in that process, rather than dismissing her on grounds of her ongoing ill health,” it reads.
The claimant’s mental health issues had declined during late 2020 and 2021 because of the earlier events in the workplace, the tribunal heard.
It also noted in the liability hearing that the claimant, in her letter of appeal against dismissal, “described her upset that the respondent, as a mental health charity had not shown a greater understanding of the claimant’s mental health and had discriminated against her”.
The charity said that the claimant would have been made redundant in January 2022 after the closure of the children’s home in which she worked in late 2021.
The claimant did not dispute this, but said that there were other roles into which she could have been redeployed.
‘Considerable stress and anxiety’
The tribunal award for injury to feelings was based on the discrimination, namely the respondent’s decision to dismiss the claimant on the basis of her health issues, rather than to carry out a disciplinary process in writing.
“We took account of the fact that the respondent’s decision involved the dismissal of the claimant, which we considered to be a very serious step to take. There was no dispute that the claimant had known underlying mental health issues, which we accepted were likely to have been exacerbated by such a step,” it reads.
“We also considered the claimant’s feelings of frustration at not having a chance to prove herself innocent of the misconduct alleged. It was evident that she suffered shock and considerable stress and anxiety due to her dismissal,” it added.
The tribunal awarded £12,000 for injury to the claimant’s feelings arising from her dismissal.
It awarded an additional £852 for financial loss and £1,721 for interest, making the total award £14,573.
Civil Society was not able to contact anyone at Sea Sanctuary for comment.
Charity Commission data for the financial year ending 30 November 2021 puts total income for Sea Sanctuary at £1.02m and expenditure £1.17m.
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