Following her dismissal, the claimant presented a claim complaining of unfair dismissal and disability discrimination. She was represented by solicitors, and, at the full merits hearing, by counsel. All of the complaints were dismissed by the ET. This appeal related to the decision dismissing a particular complaint of discrimination arising from disability (section 15 Equality Act 2010) and the decision that the Claimant was not unfairly dismissed.

The EAT dismissed the appeal. The ET did not err, at a hearing where the Claimant was represented by counsel, by considering the section 15 complaint in the form that it was advanced in an agreed list of issues inherited from a case-management hearing at which she had been represented by a solicitor; nor by failing proactively to raise with her counsel whether it should be differently framed. The ET did not err by not concluding that concerns that it expressed about the same managers being involved in initial investigations and the formal disciplinary stage, rendered the dismissal unfair. It properly took into account that an independent appeal was offered, and all of the claimant’s requests about arrangements for its conduct were accommodated; but no appeal hearing took place because the Claimant then decided not to pursue it. The ET was entitled to conclude that the end-to-end process was fair.