Dismissal: Expired disciplinary warnings do not have to be ignored for all purposes

In Airbus UK Ltd v Webb [2008] IRLR 309, the Court of Appeal held that Diosynth Ltd v Thomson did not establish a rule of law that spent warnings must be ignored for all purposes. On the facts, where a spent warning was not part of the reason for the dismissal, but the basis for the employer's refusal to exercise leniency in respect of later gross misconduct, neither Diosynth nor the wording of s.98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 rendered the dismissal necessarily unfair.