NSL Ltd v Dean Bean

Facts

The claimant, Mr Dean Bean, was employed as a Civil Enforcement Officer, beginning with the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead on 2 November 2007 and transferring to NSL Limited under TUPE on 1 December 2017 when NSL took over the Council's parking-enforcement contract. He has severe dyslexia, of which NSL was aware from the outset. On Good Friday, 19 April 2019 he patrolled Inner Windsor using a Chipside handheld device which crashed and rebooted four times that morning; NSL concluded from GPS data that between about 14:09 and 14:28 he had remained in the Coach Park rest area while manually logging streets he had not visited, a practice described as "ghost logging". The claimant maintained that he had carried out the patrol and that the GPS data was unreliable. After investigation meetings on 30 April and 8 May 2019, at which he was made to sign handwritten notes he could not read, and a disciplinary hearing on 21 May 2019, he was summarily dismissed for gross misconduct on 26 June 2019; his grievances were dismissed and his disciplinary appeal was rejected on 28 November 2019. The Reading Employment Tribunal upheld his claims of unfair dismissal, indirect disability discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments and disability-related harassment, reducing the compensatory award by 100% but leaving the basic award intact. NSL appealed.