Meliesha Jones, a part-time administrator at Vale Curtains and Blinds in Oxford since May 2021, has been awarded over £5,000 after being unfairly dismissed for an email error in June 2023. The incident occurred when Ms. Jones was handling a customer complaint and mistakenly forwarded an internal email, in which she referred to the customer as a “twat,” to the customer instead of her colleague, Karl Gibbons.
The email, meant for the installations manager, read: “Hi Karl – Can you change this… he’s a twat so it doesn’t matter if you can’t.” A week later, Ms. Jones was terminated for gross misconduct. The Reading Employment Tribunal, however, ruled in her favor, awarding her £5,484.74 for unfair dismissal.
The customer in question had made multiple complaints about his order and sought a full refund. Shortly after the email was sent, the customer’s wife contacted the company, asking, “Is there any reason why you called my husband a twat?” Shocked and regretful, Ms. Jones put the call on speaker so a colleague could hear and issued a sincere apology. The wife then demanded to speak to the manager, Jacqueline Smith.
In a subsequent call, Ms. Smith apologised for Ms. Jones’s actions and assured the customer’s wife that disciplinary action would be taken. When the wife asked for compensation, she was informed that the curtains could not be provided free of charge. She then threatened to go to the press and social media. Ms. Smith promised to investigate and follow up on the matter.
Ms. Jones even offered to pay £500 out of her own pocket as a goodwill gesture. Despite this, the tribunal heard that the company conducted a flawed investigation, holding a disciplinary hearing without interviewing either Ms. Jones or the customer. No formal notes or written decision records were made.
Under pressure from the customer, who threatened to leave negative reviews on Trustpilot, the company decided to dismiss Ms. Jones. The customer’s wife was later notified of Ms. Jones’s termination in a letter, which described the email as “disgraceful.”
Employment Judge Akua Reindorf KC concluded that the company dismissed Ms. Jones primarily to appease the customer and avoid negative publicity, rather than for any genuine disciplinary reason. Judge Reindorf noted that if a fair process had been followed, it was unlikely that Ms. Jones would have been dismissed. She described the disciplinary process as a “sham” intended to placate the customer and criticized the company for failing to consider more reasonable alternatives.
While acknowledging that Ms. Jones’s actions were “improper and blameworthy,” the judge noted that such language was not uncommon in that workplace and that the mistaken forwarding was a genuine error. The ruling concluded that the company “sacrificed the claimant’s employment” to avoid bad reviews, disregarding Ms. Jones’s rights in the process.
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