An employment tribunal has ordered a demolition company to pay more than £120,000 to a sacked employee who successfully claimed unfair dismissal.
South London-based Tower Demolition (Holdings) Ltd was found to have dismissed Mr I Turner for whistleblowing, in breach of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
The court heard that in March 2022, Turner accused a director of the company, John Egan, of breaching his duties under a shareholder agreement and his statutory duties as a director.
The precise nature of the charges is not clear from the published judgment. However, the court held that they represented qualified disclosures under the law, meaning that any dismissal primarily related to the whistleblower would be unfair.
Turner was formally fired on June 9, 2022, following his suspension on March 30 of that year.
Although the company insisted that this was not due to protected disclosure, the court found that there was “no other explanation”.
Tower Demolition (Holdings) had suggested that the dismissal was due to a proposed payment by Turner of £84,000 into his and his brother’s pension accounts; however, the court rejected this claim.
Turner asked the company’s accountant in early 2021 about the tax impact of that payment and forwarded the email exchange to Egan the next day. The court ruled that the company was aware of the proposal but did not act until after the complaint.
The demolition company insisted the reason it had not acted earlier on the proposed pension payment was a desire not to disrupt progress towards a management buyout which was completed in the summer of 2021.
However, the ruling said it did not accept that the company had a genuine belief in the plaintiff’s wrongdoing.
Tower Demolition (Holdings) Ltd was ordered to pay Turner a total of £121,601.88. The company has been contacted for comment.
