The Claimant, who had worked for the Respondent for more than 10 years, was dismissed for gross misconduct. He contended before the ET that his claim included a claim of unfair dismissal for making protected disclosures, and his claims were upheld by the ET. The Respondent appealed on a number of grounds, arguing in particular that the ET had wrongly concluded that the sole or principal reason for the Claimant's dismissal was that he had made protected disclosures on a basis that was not argued by the Claimant, was not put to a key witness and was contrary to the evidence given by that witness.

The EAT held that the grounds of appeal relating to automatic unfair dismissal should be upheld, but the remaining ground of appeal should be dismissed. Given that the reason for dismissal was a fundamental issue in relation to both the ordinary and automatically unfair dismissal claims, the matter would be remitted in its entirety to a freshly constituted ET.