Miss A Lanuszka v Accountancy MK Services Ltd [2025]
Facts
The employer installed spyware on their employee’s (Anna) work computer and found she had spent about 2 hours 33 minutes over two days browsing websites like Amazon, Very, and Rightmove, of which about 1 hour 24 minutes was for personal use.
She was summarily dismissed in July 2023. The dismissal letter accused her of “private business activities” during work hours, saying this violated the company’s code of conduct.
Decision
The tribunal found that many of the company’s claims—performance issues, previous warnings—were poorly documented and in dispute.
There was no evidence that she had been made aware of the code of conduct or the formal warning claimed to have been given previously.
Furthermore, the tribunal believed that the true motive for dismissing her might have been to avoid giving her unfair dismissal protection, which she would have been entitled to after 2 years’ continuous service. The employer was aware of this qualifying period.
Anna was awarded £14,100 for loss of earnings, including a 20% uplift for the company’s failure to follow the Acas code.
Our comments
Procedure: It is very important that you:
• Document and formally record any misconduct matters as this could later support any evidence required at a disciplinary meeting.
• Follow a fair procedure when issuing a disciplinary warning or dismissing an employee – failure to do so could result in the employer struggling to defend a claim and face an uplift in compensation by up to 25%.
TUPE Transfer: In this case, the employer was under the misunderstanding that the employee had less than 2 years’ service and therefore was unprotected believing she would not be able to claim unfair dismissal. She did in fact have more than 2 years’ service and as her contract was transferred from the previous company meaning she had the required length of service to be able to make such claim.
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