The claimant, a non-Catholic chartered accountant employed as Head of Finance by the Clifton Catholic Diocese, was dismissed for gross misconduct in October 2021 following a disciplinary process that the Employment Tribunal found to be deeply flawed. The ET held the dismissal unfair and wrongful, finding that performance concerns had been deliberately inflated into gross misconduct allegations by her line manager, principally in response to the claimant's request to return from adoption leave on a part-time basis. Complaints of direct religion or belief discrimination and a linked harassment complaint against the Diocese were also upheld.

HHJ Tayler allowed the appeal as the ET had erred in its application of the burden of proof. It had improperly used the unexplained misconduct of three employees involved to shift the burden of proof in the discrimination claims when their actions had not been discriminatory, though another employee's conduct had been. The matter was remitted to the same Tribunal for redetermination.