Employee fairly dismissed for lying to court about employer’s stance on her jury service
Irwin v Ridge Crest Cleaning Ltd ET/1100292/10
Date added: 29 September 2010
unfair dismissal | jury service
An employee’s lies to a third party can be grounds for dismissal for breach of trust and confidence, as this case demonstrates.
Practical tips Small employers are not obliged to use external third parties to deal with grievance or disciplinary issues. However, where the only appropriate person to deal with such a matter is also the subject of allegations (as was the case here), an independent investigator or HR consultant may well be appropriate. |
Mrs Irwin was a junior operations manager for Ridge Crest Cleaning, and was responsible for arranging cleaning services at Tonbridge Grammar School. On 31 July 2009, Mrs Irwin was summoned for jury service to commence 1 September 2009. She informed the company about this, and it raised no objection.
On 26 August 2009, Mrs Irwin and the company’s managing director and owner, Mr Beach, attended Tonbridge Grammar School and discussed a deep clean for the school's canteen, which needed to be completed by 1 September 2009. Mrs Irwin’s later evidence was that Mr Beach told her to get out of her jury service, and when she asked how she was supposed to do that, he suggested telling the court she had swine flu. Mr Beach denied this and said that, although Mrs Irwin had asked him whether or not she could get out of jury service, he had told her that he had no objection to her attending it, provided that she arranged for the cleaning to be completed on time. He claimed that he told Mrs Irwin that if she wished to apply to defer her jury service, she should approach the company’s office manager for an appropriate letter.
On the evening of 31 August 2009, Mrs Irwin texted Mr Beach saying that she could not get out of her jury service. This concerned Mr Beach, who was upset that she had left it until the last minute to let him know, and thought that it might cause problems for the cleaning at the school. On 1 September 2009, Mr Beach received a number of complaints from the school that the cleaning had not been done properly. He and Mrs Irwin had an angry telephone conversation that evening.
On 2 September 2009, Mrs Irwin again attended jury service and, referring to her conversation with Mr Beach on 26 August 2009, told the court that he had instructed her to try to get out of jury service by saying that she had swine flu. She was excused from jury service as a result and, on advice from the jury bailiff, reported the matter to the police. On 23 October 2009, she made a statement to the police in connection with proceedings for contempt of court against Mr Beach, repeating her allegations about him asking her to lie to avoid jury service. Mr Beach was later summoned to the Crown Court for alleged contempt of court.
Mr Beach suspended Mrs Irwin and arranged for an independent investigation to be carried out into her actions, which he considered constituted a potential breach of trust and confidence. During the investigation, Mrs Irwin stood by her story and claimed that Mr Beach had made harassing calls to her. The independent investigator could find no evidence of such calls, and concluded that Mrs Irwin had lied to the court. Mr Beach accepted the report and dismissed her for gross misconduct. Mrs Irwin did not appeal, but claimed unfair dismissal.
At the tribunal, Mrs Irwin argued that it was wrong of Mr Beach to have used an independent investigator, and then to take the decision to dismiss himself. The tribunal found that the company was small and had no one else of similar seniority to Mr Beach. It found that he had sought to “inject impartiality into the investigation” by appointing an external third party to conduct the investigation, and had adopted a fair approach to the matter.
The tribunal also found that the company reasonably concluded that Mrs Irwin had lied to the court, and therefore held that her dismissal was fair in all the circumstances.
Additional resources
- Get more information on jury service with the XpertHR FAQs section:
- Is an employer required to permit its employees to go on jury service?
- Where an employer considers that having a particular employee go on jury service would injure its business, can it approach the court directly to request a deferral?
- Do employees have a statutory right to be paid while on jury service?
- XpertHR's policies and documents section provides the following model documents relating to jury service:
- Jury service policy Use this model policy when drafting a staff handbook or policy on time off work.
- Leave for jury service contract clause Use this model contract clause when drafting an employee's contract of employment or employee handbook.
- Letter from an employer to support an employee's application for deferral of jury service Use this model letter to write to the court in support of an employee's application for the deferral of or excusal from jury service where the reasons for the application are work related.
