Mr Jeffrey Osagie v Serco Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Master Cook |
| Judgment Date | 11 July 2019 |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] EWHC 1803 (QB) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: QB-2018-000247 |
| Date | 11 July 2019 |
[2019] EWHC 1803 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Master Cook
Case No: QB-2018-000247
Mr Osagie in person
Mr Adam Speker (instructed by Addleshaw Goddard LLP) for the Defendants
Hearing date: 10 June 2019
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
The Claimant brings this claim for damages and injunctive relief in slander, libel malicious falsehood, negligence and under the Human Rights Act 1998 against his former employer, the First Defendant and five employees of the First Defendant, the Second to Sixth Defendants.
There are three applications before the court;
i) the Defendants' application dated 27 March 2019 to strike out the claim and/or for summary judgment;
ii) the Claimant's application dated 27 March 2019 to amend his Particulars of Claim;
iii) the Claimant's application dated 8 March 2019 to set aside the costs order made by me in my order of 26 February 2019.
As far as the applications of 27 March 2019 are concerned Mr Speker made the point that the Claimant has effectively conceded his particulars of claim require amendment. In the circumstances it was appropriate to focus upon the Claimant's proposed amended particulars of claim and to consider whether permission to amend should be granted. Mr Speker's submission was that permission to amend should not be granted and/or the claim should be struck out because:
i) There are procedural defects that have still not been remedied and to allow the claim to proceed in the form proposed would be contrary to the overriding objective;
ii) There are unanswerable defences;
iii) The claim is vexatious and/or an abuse of process however it is pleaded.
I consider that Mr Speker's suggestion is a sensible way of proceeding. As far as the application of 8 March 2019 is concerned, Mr Speker was prepared to concede that my order for costs should be varied to provide for “Defendants' costs in case”. Mr Osagie was content with this outcome and therefore that disposes of the third application.
I should also record that shortly before this hearing, on 10 June 2019, Mr Osagie filed a notice of discontinuance against the Fourth Defendant Miss Lynn Chadbone. The discontinuance of the claim against Ms Chadbone means that paragraphs 22, 23 and 24 of the draft amended particulars of claim will be deleted.
Background
Mr Osagie was employed by the First Defendant, Serco Limited from March 2015 until August 2018 when he resigned. During this period, he worked as a prisoner custody officer and a deputy court custody manager.
In early March 2017 Mr Osagie was signed off work with stress and low mood by his general practitioner. On 6 March 2017 he sent a grievance to one of his managers, Mr Chris Woodward. In his grievance Mr Osagie complained of seven instances of treatment at the hands of his supervisor, Mr Andrew Miller, which he alleged were contrary to the Equality Act 2010. The grievance was investigated and reported on by Wendy Mckenzie. Wendy Mckenzie produced a draft report, the thrust of which was that she did not uphold Mr Osagie's grievances. She also made three recommendations, including one that Mr Osagie should attend a disciplinary hearing in respect of a failure to carry out his duties in full uniform. The draft report was sent to Margaret Thompson in Serco's HR department.
On 30 June 2017, before he had received the outcome of his grievance, Mr Osagie commenced proceedings against his employer in the Employment Tribunal. It would appear he did so in order to preserve his position in respect of time limits.
On 25 th July 2017 the result of the grievance was sent to Mr Osagie. The only difference from the draft report is that the recommendation of disciplinary action was removed as Margaret Thompson formed the view that it was an inappropriate outcome in the context of a grievance.
Mr Osagie was dissatisfied with the result of his grievance and initiated an appeal process by way of a letter dated 6 August 2017. The appeal process was conducted by Jane Stow. Following a hearing which for various reasons could not take place until 12 October 2017 Jane Stow decided that she would conduct some further interviews. Having completed her enquiries a final outcome was communicated to Mr Osagie on 21 December 2017. Jane Stow rejected the assertion made by Mr Osagie that Wendy Mckenzie had been biased or that there had been any significant procedural failings, she reconsidered the seven incidents which comprised the original grievance and while acknowledging there had been a delay in providing an outcome she went on to dismiss each of Mr Osagie's complaints.
Mr Osagie's Employment Tribunal claim was heard over five days between 12 and 27 March 2018 by a panel chaired by Employment Judge Crosfill. On 26 July 2018 the Tribunal handed down a lengthy written judgment and dismissed Mr Osagie's claims of; harassment related to sex, direct discrimination because of race, direct discrimination because of sex and victimisation. The Tribunal reserved one issue relating to whether Mr Osagie was disabled for the purpose of section 6 of the Equality Act.
Mr Osagie has two further Employment Tribunal claims, a claim for victimisation and harassment arising out of his complaint that various employees of Serco had alleged and repeated allegations that he had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct towards a female member of staff and a claim for direct discrimination, victimisation and constructive unfair dismissal. The Employment Tribunal has stayed these claims pending resolution of these proceedings in the High Court for the reasons given by Employment Judge Morton on 30 April 2019.
It is right that I should note at this stage that the Employment Tribunal made a number of findings which were adverse to Mr Osagie. At paragraph 22 of the judgment;
“We conclude that the Claimant was very difficult to manage and resented the instructions that he was given. In particular, he was intolerant of the policy of surrendering electronic devices.
In light of that finding we would accept that the issue of electronic devices was raised with the Claimant more often than with other employees but only because the Claimant had failed to comply with the policy on numerous occasions and tended to push back against his managers.”
At Paragraph 25;
“Elsewhere in this judgment we find that that the Claimant was not an accurate historian. We make no finding as to whether the Claimant had observed Dirk Muller using his iPad. It is quite possible he did. However, we reject the Claimant's account that Andrew Miller demanded that he surrender his electronic devises knowing that that Dirk Muller was using his….”
At paragraph 28;
“The Claimant says that he was singled out by being asked to do property duty alone. We accept that there were occasions when the Claimant was asked to do property alone. The 1 March 2017 is an example when he was asked to start alone. In fact ( he) finished duty very quickly and before the person (2Mo”) who was to assist him turned up. However, we do not accept this was anything out of the ordinary and if the Claimant resented the odd occasion when he, like others, was expected to undertake these duties he has an unjustified sense of grievance. There was evidence from Stephan McLean and other employees that the Claimant was not prepared to muck in and help and his attitude in regard to this allegation is consistent with that evidence.”
At paragraph 40;
“The Claimant says that at some point during the murder trial Adam Buchanan took annual leave and suggested that the Claimant sit in on the trial. He says that Michelle Stephens initially agreed and then later said it was not possible. Michelle Stephens has no recollection of this and in her witness statement suggests that Adam Buchanan did not take leave at least for three days of the trial. Michelle Stephens says that she would never have thought of allocating a PCO to a particular trial on the basis of their race. She had no recollection of any conversation relating to Adam Buchanan. Given the propensity of the Claimant to embellish his account of events we are not satisfied that the Claimant's account is accurate although we accept there was some conversation. We reach our conclusions on that point below. However we did note that in the course of the hearing the Claimant had to be prompted to put any allegation of race discrimination to Michelle Stephen whom he had made no criticism during his extensive grievance process nor had he named her as a respondent to these proceedings in contrast to his approach to Andrew Miller.”
At paragraphs 50 and 51;
“We entirely reject any suggestion made by the Claimant that he was dressed in his company uniform underneath his fleece. We do so for the following reasons. It is most unlikely that the Claimant would have been doing exercises in a garment as warm as a fleece. We see no reason why the Claimant's colleague Samuel Kusi-Aidoo would lie about the incident. We have had regard to the fact that Andrew Miller set out his version of events contemporaneously in the Occurrence Record. Finally, and most compellingly, the fact the Claimant was not wearing his proper uniform beneath his fleece provided the most likely explanation of why he refused to unzip his fleece when asked to do so. The Claimant has tried to persuade us that that he did not know why Andrew Miller wished to see under his fleece. We consider that to be disingenuous. He was well aware that there were...
To continue reading
Request your trial