In the case of Mr C Hagan v Sky Retail Stores Limited Mr Hagan was employed as a sales adviser at the Sky stand in Kingston upon Thames’s Bentall Centre from 7 August 2017 until his dismissal on 25 November 2020.
In September 2019, Hagan’s grandmother, who was also caring for his disabled son, died, and on 2 October he made plans to travel to Ghana to attend the funeral.
The tribunal heard that “sometime” between September and December 2019, Hagan was investigated for using the Sky stand to make calls to Ghana. The allegation was upheld, and he was issued with a Final Written Warning for breaching Sky’s acceptable use policy. Mr Hagan made 97 calls to Ghana between the dates of 23rd October 2018 and 19th September 2019 which resulted in a financial loss to Sky totalling £1.033.84. Mr Hagan subsequently repaid the monies owing.
Mr Hagan was also involved in a second investigation concerning allegations by a colleague that he spent long periods away from the stand, long periods on his own mobile, that he would give customers his personal mobile number, made inappropriate comments about women (not upheld by Sky), would leave his daughter at the stand, and would play inappropriate music at the stand.
Mr Hagan was dismissed for breaching Sky’s data protection policies having admitted sending a text with a customer’s details using his personal mobile. Despite Hagan initially being invited to a disciplinary meeting on 4 June – which did not go ahead – he did not hear from his employer until 5 November, which stated that the meeting did not go ahead because Hagan provided a ‘fit note’ from his GP, which resulted in a referral to OH. As such, the investigation continued until late November 2020.
The Tribunal noted that there were a number of delays during that 5-month investigation but found that the explanations for the delays were insufficient to render this part of the process objectively reasonable.
“This is [down] to the overall length of time that it took to carry out the investigation, and in particular the period of time during which there was no evidence of any attempt by [Sky] to contact [Hagan] about the investigation,” said Employment Judge Swaffer, who added that they found the period of five months “without evidence of contact or attempted contact surprising, and at odds with the requirement for an investigation to be reasonable”.
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