The Claimant was dismissed for continual lateness and having received written warnings for the same reason. The dismissal letter cited the live final written warning and approximately 50 occasions of lateness since that warning had been imposed. The ET found that she was fairly dismissed. The Claimant appealed on 2 grounds: 1) as the ET did not have the disciplinary policy, it could not measure the nature and extent of the alleged misconduct and the appropriate reasonable range for sanction (the knock-on effect); and 2) the ET had not identified or tested evidence as to whether the Claimant was treated differently from others in the same material circumstances.

The EAT dismissed the appeal. As to the knock-on effect point, the EAT could find no fault in the ET’s reasoning that an employer does not have to demonstrate that persistent lateness had a specific knock-on effect, but if they were wrong about that in general terms, when an individual is in receipt of an un-appealed final written warning arising from persistent lateness and warned that such further conduct could result in dismissal, he or she is clearly on notice as to the consequences such as to make the need for any such explanation otiose. As to the second point, it was clear that the Claimant was unable to name anyone whom she thought to have a similar lateness record to her. The ET made the obvious point that there was no reason for the claimant to have been singled out for further proceedings.