Harassment played a part in deaf employee’s dismissal

Beddoe v Rhymney Communities First Partnership ET/1605142/08

Date added: 8 July 2010

disability discrimination | harassment | failure to make reasonable adjustments

A tribunal can consider an employer’s conduct as a whole when determining whether or not unlawful harassment played a part in an employee’s dismissal, as this case shows. 

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This case is a reminder that even though an employee’s dismissal is ostensibly on performance grounds, if the employer cannot justify its actions a tribunal may draw inferences that unlawful discrimination played a part in the dismissal. 

The tribunal here considered that the employer’s justification for its actions was implausible, and it pieced together from the wider factual matrix a significant – and unlawful – motivating factor behind the employee’s dismissal. 

Mr Beddoe, who is profoundly deaf, started work at Rhymney Communities First Partnership in June 2007, where he helped people learn to use computers. Early in Mr Beddoe’s employment, and for reasons unconnected with his deafness, the relationship between him and the organisation’s secretary, Eleanor Lewis, deteriorated. As a result, Ms Lewis ignored Mr Beddoe in the office, and lowered her voice both when having conversations with other colleagues and when she was required to speak to him. 

On one occasion, Mr Beddoe's line manager blamed him for an incident that occurred when he misunderstood her verbal instructions. Although following this incident Mr Beddoe asked for all future instructions to be in writing, his employer did not take this step. The employer also failed to provide Mr Beddoe with a suitable telephone that was specially adapted for his disability. 

In April 2008, the employer gave Mr Beddoe an informal verbal warning for alleged performance failures, and later that month began disciplinary action against him for these and other issues. However, Mr Beddoe resigned before the disciplinary hearing took place, saying that he could no longer tolerate his employer’s unacceptable behaviour. Mr Beddoe claimed harassment on the ground of his disability, and a failure by his employer to make reasonable adjustments. 

The tribunal held that the provision of a suitable adapted telephone and written instructions for Mr Beddoe were reasonable adjustments that his employer should have made to help him. The tribunal found that the disciplinary proceedings initiated against Mr Beddoe were a sham, and were adopted by his line manager as a means of expressing her and Ms Lewis’s dislike of him. The tribunal drew inferences of disability discrimination from the employer’s behaviour in this regard. 

Although the reason for Ms Lewis’s poor treatment of Mr Beddoe was not his deafness, the tribunal held that the method by which she expressed her dislike of Mr Beddoe would have had the effect of violating his dignity and creating a hostile and humiliating environment for him. The tribunal felt that Ms Lewis's behaviour was connected to the employer's decision to begin disciplinary proceedings against Mr Beddoe. Looking at the whole of the employer’s conduct, the tribunal held that Mr Beddoe had been dismissed, and that unlawful harassment had played a significant part in that dismissal. 

View the full transcript of the case 


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