An appeal against the ET’s decision concerning alleged qualifying and protected disclosures has been allowed in part. In a very complex case, which began when a serving police officer, PC Pendlebury, was arrested at an Asda store in Ashton-under-Lyne for shoplifting and common assault against a security guard, several police investigators brought a case in the ET concerning alleged qualifying and protected disclosures in connection with their investigation into misconduct, corruption and possible criminal offences committed by a number of officers including senior officers.
The investigation initially uncovered evidence that PS Pendlebury’s wife and her friend and hairdresser had perverted the course of justice and that they had fabricated evidence and made a number of false allegations about the Asda security guard in an attempt to undermine the prosecution case against PS Pendlebury.
The investigating team also discovered evidence that they believed raised issues of improper interference in the proceedings against PS Pendlebury and professional misconduct and criminal offences by three senior officers.
The ET decided that many of the investigator’s disclosures amounted to qualifying and protected disclosures and concluded that they had been subjected to detriments claimed on grounds of having made the protected disclosures. The case went to appeal.
The EAT dismissed the first two grounds of appeal but held, in relation to the third ground, that this was one of the very rare cases where the appeal tribunal should exercise its discretion to allow the point to be raised for the first time on appeal. Accordingly, the ET’s conclusion that that detriment was a well-founded claim would be dismissed.
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