Royal Mail Supreme Court ruling gives extra whisteblower protection | Business News

Whistleblowers have gained extra protection after a landmark Supreme Court judgment against Royal Mail, according to legal experts.

Campaigners have hailed as “a step in the right direction” the decision that an employee was unfairly dismissed because her line manager had “dishonestly constructed” a “bogus” reason for her sacking.

The unanimous ruling followed a lengthy legal battle brought by Kamaljeet Jhuti, who was employed as a media specialist in Royal Mail’s MarketReach unit, which promotes postal marketing services, in September 2013.

Shortly after starting, she had raised concerns a colleague was breaching company policy by offering incentives to existing customers.

Ms Jhuti claimed this led to a campaign by her line manager, Mike Widmer, to force her out of her job by setting impossible targets.

She was eventually sacked in July 2014 on the advice of another manager who was asked to review her allegedly inadequate performance.

However, they were not told of her concerns about possible breaches of company policy or of her complaints that Mr Widmer had “a grudge” against her.

In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that Ms Jhuti had been unfairly dismissed, despite the fact that the decision to sack her was made “in good faith”.

Lord Wilson held that, where a more senior employee decides someone “should be dismissed for a reason but hides it behind an invented reason which the decision-maker adopts, the reason for the dismissal is the hidden reason rather than the invented reason”.

The judge said Mr Widmer had responded to Ms Jhuti’s concerns “by deciding to pretend that (her) performance of her duties is inadequate”, and that he succeeded in “creating, in emails and otherwise, a false picture of her inadequate performance”.

He added that, where someone had “dishonestly constructed” grounds for dismissal, “it is the court’s duty to penetrate through the invention rather than to allow it also to infect its own determination”.

Annabel Mackay, an employment lawyer with Baker McKenzie, said the Supreme Court’s ruling was an “important judgment, extending the scope of whistleblower protection”.

She said: “This decision will make it easier for employees to seek redress where they perceive that, regardless of the number of managers involved, they have been dismissed for having blown the whistle.”

Ms Mackay added that this meant employers “will not be able to rely on a particular manager’s lack of knowledge as a defence, however innocent”, which “inevitably increases an employer’s exposure to retaliatory actions by a rogue line manager”.

Francesca West, chief executive of whistleblowing charity Protect, said: “This judgment is a step in the right direction for employers to have to tread with caution where there is a background of public interest concerns and a need to protect the whistleblower.

“However more needs to be done to ensure the employer has a positive duty to protect individuals and prevent harm from the outset.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Royal Mail is disappointed by the Supreme Court’s judgment which relates to events that happened six years ago.

“Our whistleblowing policy makes it clear that whistleblowers should not suffer any detrimental treatment as a result of raising a concern.

“Royal Mail’s whistleblowing hotline, ‘Speak Up’, allows all of our people to raise concerns anonymously should they so wish.”