The Claimant brought a range of complaints to the ET, one of which was an unlawful deduction from wages claim relating to the non-payment of a bonus. The ET, in rejecting that claim, accepted that there could not be a contractual right to a non-contractual bonus save in circumstances in which a commitment might have arisen by virtue of custom and practice, a point which was not pursued by the Claimant. The result was that “any bonus payable was entirely discretionary.” The harassment claim was also dismissed on the grounds that that the Respondent's conduct had not violated the Claimant's dignity or of created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him, although the ET did say that if the Respondent had subsequently behaved in that way, now being aware of the effect of those words, a harassment claim would have been made out. The Claimant also complained about the ET's conclusion that his dismissal was by reason of redundancy and the unfairness was only because he was denied a right to appeal.

The EAT dismissed the appeal but allowed the cross-appeal in part. In relation to the unlawful deductions claim, whilst it was correct that the ET appear not to have properly considered the definition of ‘wages’ in section 27 Employment Rights Act 1996, any error was academic given the way in which the claim had been advanced by the Claimant. On the harassment claim, the ET had been entitled to find that objectively, it was not reasonable for the Respondent’s conduct to have had the effect of violating the Claimant’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him – the ET had properly applied section 26 Equality Act 2010 and the decision could not be said to be perverse. The unfair dismissal appeal was also dismissed. The ET had properly considered the reason for dismissal and found it to be redundancy. There was no room for any conclusion that the real reason for dismissal was the Claimant’s absences from work or that the decision maker had been manipulated into the conclusion that he had reached. The Respondent's cross-appeal was allowed in part but this was academic following the dismissal of the Claimant's appeals.