Tribunal failed to consider reasonableness of investigation overall

In Compass Group UK v Celebi, the EAT overturned a tribunal’s decision of unfair dismissal. The tribunal had focussed on insufficiency of evidence rather than on whether the investigation was a reasonable one. The key factor was whether the employer’s belief in the loss of £3,000 was reasonable in the circumstances.

Miss Celebi was dismissed for incorrect reporting of stock figures, and financial loss. In finding she had been unfairly dismissed the tribunal stated that it was not its role to undertake its own investigation, but concluded that the investigation had been “sloppy”. As a result the tribunal found that Compass had failed to undertake a reasonable investigation into the allegation and as a result, no reasonable employer could have concluded in all the circumstances that the loss of the sum of £3,000 was the fault of the Claimant.

The EAT allowed the employer’s appeal. The function of the tribunal was to decide whether the investigation was reasonable in the circumstances and whether the decision to dismiss in the light of the result of that investigation was a reasonable response. The range of reasonable responses test applies as much to the question of whether investigation into suspected misconduct was reasonable in all the circumstances as it did to other procedural substantive aspects of the decision to dismiss. In this case the tribunal had failed to concentrate on key issue, namely the reasonableness of the employer’s belief in the loss of £3,000. Although the tribunal had reminded itself of its task it had in fact imposed its own view of the fairness of the dismissal, not considered how a reasonable employer would have acted.