A scientist who was described as “absolutely useless” by managers has won a claim for age discrimination and compensation of more than £340,000.
Cyril Gregory worked as a geophysicist at PetroTrace in Woking and was 62 at the time of his dismissal in late 2021. He had been at the company for four years.
The tribunal heard that managers had discussed his age behind his back and in emails, saying that they wanted to recruit “more active” staff. One email said he was “far over 60” and “expensive”.
Meanwhile, managers explained to Gregory that the reason for his dismissal was initially due to a “current downturn” and then “poor performance”.
Prior to his dismissal, the company had updated its HR processes and produced new job descriptions, and Gregory’s job title was changed. There was some confusion at the time that managers felt this was a demotion, but this was not communicated to Gregory.
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Managers also claimed they raised disciplinary issues on “many occasions”, but could not give specific examples and Gregory had a clean disciplinary record.
However, the tribunal heard correspondence between a majority shareholder in the Russian company and its managing director Nigel Buxton explaining that “We can say the reason we let [another employee] and [Gregory] go is bad performance…He is quite expensive and not productive… I am sure he doesn’t have a shortage of money.”
The shareholder wrote: “He is not a young person and I believe he is a pensioner.”
The tribunal found that there was sufficient evidence in such emails “to make a firm finding that age was the reason why the claimant was singled out for dismissal and dismissed”.
“The claimant was treated less favourably than the comparators in that he was singled out for dismissal. The emails speak for themselves,” the judgment said.
It added that there was no evidence that performance or redundancy was the true reason for Gregory’s dismissal, nor was there a defence of the less favourable treatment being a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
Gregory also won claims for unfair dismissal, victimisation and breach of contract. A claim for race discrimination was not successful.
Since his dismissal, Gregory said he has found trouble getting roles as a geophysicist and now works 12 hours a week for World Duty Free at Gatwick Airport.
He told the tribunal that the dispute with PetroTrace was “hammering my physical and mental health”, including a bout of shingles last year he believes was stress-related.
The total award he received was £340,000, including almost £150,000 for financial losses, £20,000 for injury to feelings, a £42,000 uplift for the company’s failure to comply with the Acas code, tax and interest.
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