Corporation Sheffield: Nightclub employee who called boss a c**t 'unfairly sacked for standing up for rights'

Debbie Barker was dismissed from her role as night manager at Corporation nightclub, on Milton Street, after describing her boss Mark Hobson as a ‘c**t’ and writing that he ‘can suck my balls’ in a ‘Rebel Alliance’ WhatsApp group set up by disgruntled employees.

But an employment tribunal upheld her claim of unfair dismissal, concluding: “Mr Hobson used the disciplinary process to ‘show the door’ to a number of employees who stood up for their statutory rights.” It did, however, state that Ms Barker’s actions ‘contributed towards her dismissal’ and any compensation awarded should be reduced by 25 per cent as a result.

The tribunal heard that Ms Barker and other employees had complained about alleged breaches of their statutory rights, which they said included unlawful deductions from their wages, insufficient notice being given before requiring staff to take holidays and failure to provide itemised payslips. But an employment tribunal found there was no investigation into these alleged breaches, nor was there any investigation ‘in relation to the alleged use of threatening behaviour and abusive language by Mr Hobson towards nightclub staff’.

The dispute began when the club was forced to close during the first lockdown in March 2020. Staff were furloughed but when the club was allowed to reopen in July, initially with table service only, the tribunal heard, employees were asked to return to work and were paid ‘cash in hand’.

In September 2020, Mr Hobson, Corporation’s managing director, wrote to staff requesting they take all their unused leave for 2020 before the end of the furlough scheme, giving them just two days in which to respond that they ‘understand and confirm the request’. At a subsequent meeting, Mr Hobson confirmed that if staff did not do as requested, they would ‘probably’ be ‘first out the door’.

The following month, a letter was sent to Ms Barker and her colleagues telling them they were at risk of redundancy.

Staff subsequently approached the employment rights body Acas to raise concerns about their treatment but the tribunal found that their actions were ‘not seen as a legitimate and lawful way of raising concerns, but as a hostile act in an attempt to disrupt the respondent’s business’. The tribunal ruling adds that ‘a number of those employees were subsequently punished, once the contents of the WhatsApp Group messages came to light, which were selectively considered’.

Mr Hobson was informed that a WhatsApp redundancy group had been set up, and two members of that group told him in March 2021 that the chat on it was becoming ‘toxic’, with threats made against him.

In April 2021, the tribunal heard, Mr Hobson moved out of his home for a few months due to fear for his safety, and in June that year a report was made to police.

Those two members were asked by Mr Hobson to remain in the group and send him any messages they were concerned about, though Ms Barker claimed one of those members had herself stated in the chat, in a message she later deleted, that she ‘wanted to kill Mark’.

In June 2021, Ms Barker and six colleagues were invited to disciplinary hearings, conducted by Mr Hobson's mother, Rosemary de Ville, a former shareholder and director of the company. Ms Barker, who had worked for Corporation for 17 years, was accused of ‘serious insubordination’, using 'obscene language’ and two other alleged offences. The disciplinary hearing concluded that her actions amounted to ‘a pattern of serious misconduct’, and on August 19, 2021, she received a letter by email, terminating her employment.

The employment tribunal between Ms Barker and Bondco 628 Limited, trading as Corporation, was heard in Sheffield before Employment Judge James between July 2022 and October 2022. The written ruling was published on March 8, 2023.

It concludes: “For all of the above reasons, taken as a whole, the tribunal finds that the reason put forward by the respondent for the dismissal, i.e. conduct, was not the real reason for the dismissal. The tribunal concludes that the principal reason for the claimant’s dismissal was that she had asserted the statutory rights set out above, both individually, and subsequently, via Acas, collectively with others.

“It is evident from the findings of fact that the respondent took exception to that, and the tribunal concludes that this subsequently materially influenced the approach of both Mr Hobson and Ms de Ville to the disciplinary process and outcome.”