A worker who took his employer to court for unfair dismissal has been awarded £2.5m in one of the UK’s biggest disability discrimination payouts to date.

David Barrow won a claim for unfair dismissal, harassment and unfavourable treatment after his employer fired him while undergoing cancer treatment three years ago.

His solicitor and Legal Director at didlaw, Anita Vadgama, explains:

“In 2017, Mr Barrow had begun to experience symptoms of cancer (undiagnosed at the time) and wrote some defensive emails to his manager, Andrew Barrie, while he was suffering from the side effects of oral steroid medication.

“No formal concerns were ever raised before, out of the blue on 6 December 2017, David was called into a meeting with KBR’s HR Director, Tim Rosbrook, and told ‘These discussions are always difficult but I’m afraid KBR can no longer employ you.’ No reason was given, and Mr Rosbrook openly admitted, ‘the company has probably missed out several steps in its normal processes’. He then told David he had 20 minutes to leave and escorted him with his personal belongings from the building.

“David had been excluded from the workplace, but he was not entirely sure whether he had been terminated or suspended or if there was another reason. In January 2018 Mr Barrow’s cancer was formally diagnosed, a rare cancer, and which he duly told his employer. However, just six weeks later and coinciding with starting chemotherapy, the company then attempted to instigate a post-dated dismissal process to show that they had followed a fair procedure. This was a sham as the Tribunal later found. David was formally dismissed in May 2018.

“The ET, finding for Mr Barrow on several claims including discriminatory dismissal, section 15 discrimination and harassment, found that there had been no genuine attempt by the company to look at matters afresh and consider David’s mitigating health circumstances in the subsequent months. The dismissal was outside the range of reasonable responses. The Tribunal held: ‘No reasonable employer would have acted in the way the Respondent did in dismissing an employee who had spent 36 years working for the company’.

“The ET also concluded that Andrew Barrie, who had made both the initial and final decisions to dismiss, had tried to suggest that the dismissal was rooted in a breakdown of trust and confidence. His actions were held to be a ruse disguising the real reasons for his actions. The emails which Mr Barrow wrote were a material factor in the decision to dismiss. There was a connection between the emails and Mr Barrow’s disability and therefore the claim of section 15 discrimination, discrimination arising in consequence of disability, was well founded.

“The dismissal itself was an act of harassment. It was unwanted conduct related to disability.”

There are several different types of discrimination defined in the Equality Act 2010, including victimisation and harassment. Harassment is defined as unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct that violates the dignity of a person or creates a hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.

The liability judgement can be found here.

Read Anita Vadgama’s full article here.