A number of staff members at the Northern Trust were found at fault during the disability discrimination hearing
A man received over £30,000 as a result of a disability discrimination hearing against the Northern Trust after it was found to have denied an incident where he was assaulted took place, lied about mental health concerns and made disparaging remarks about him during a workplace grievance hearing.
Christopher Noade was awarded £20,000 alongside £3,000 in aggravated damages and £14,000 interest following an industrial tribunal at the end of 2024 which involved a number of senior managers and the Chief Executive of the Trust at the time.
The issues arose following an incident at a Northern Trust children’s home in Antrim when Christopher was assaulted by two children at the home who then made further threats against him and his family. This included threatening to burn his house down with his four children in it.
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Following this Christopher told his deputy team leader that he would like to return home as he had been assaulted and to check on his family. He was told that the service manager had said that he may not be paid if he left his shift with the deputy team leader saying that she would be able to cover it for Christopher.
However, Christopher was concerned about the response from the Trust to the incident, as managers were more concerned about him leaving his shift than the assault that took place. In fact, the Trust denied the assault took place to the tribunal despite those involved being criminally convicted for the incident.
After this, managers at the trust went on to make a series of false statements regarding Christopher in an Occupational Health referrals and emails, which included saying he was suicidal, there was a risk of him harming vulnerable children and himself, that Christopher struggled with his workload and was not emotionally competent to handle it and that previous absences were connected to stress and anxiety.
The Trust accepted that none of these statements made about Christopher were true and that one referral and additional information for another referral were never shared with him, despite managers saying that it had been.
These issues were later escalated to a grievance hearing which Christopher recorded for his own records. During a break in the hearing one of the members of the grievance hearing panel said Christopher was a “paranoid delusionist” who was “out for blood” and had “mental health issues”.
While these remarks were not said directly to Chris, they were said in front of assistant directors from the trust. Christopher later heard these remarks on his recording.
Despite being present on the panel, a number of its members told the tribunal that it did not hear the comments made about Christopher. The Trust also maintained that the comments made about him did not violate its own policy and definition of harassment, despite the Tribunal finding that it had on “any reasonable reading of that policy”.
The Chief Executive of the Northern Trust at the time, Jennifer Welsh, was asked by Christopher in an email if she stood by the Trust’s position on this, with her responding that she did. The Tribunal later found her to be at fault for “upholding something which, in the tribunal’s view, is unreasonable”.
The panel member who made the comments about Christopher also failed to apologise for the remarks, with the tribunal noting that he had only ever apologised for the fact that Christopher had heard the remarks
The tribunal found that Christopher was the victim of direct disability discrimination, harassment and victimisation pursuant to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. This was aggravated by the conduct of Trust members of staff right up until the tribunal took place.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Christopher said that the case showed a culture of dishonesty among senior staff at the Trust, as they continued to lie right up until the tribunal hearing itself.
He said that it was worrying that senior members of the trust would act like this towards a member of staff and make repeated false statements about them.
With regards to the disparaging comments made about him during the grievance hearing, he said the Trust appeared to be more concerned with how he how the comments, rather than them being made in the first place, and questioned if other members of staff are treated with the same contempt when they make a grievance in the workplace.
A spokesperson for the Northern Health and Social Care Trust said: “The Trust takes very seriously the decision reached by the tribunal and we would again apologise to Mr Noade for the hurt and distress caused to him.
“We have taken time to work with our legal advisors and others to reflect on the findings and specific legal matters in this case, focusing on how we can achieve learning.
“A number of actions have been progressed including the provision of sessions facilitated by our legal team for all of our senior leaders and line managers across the Trust.
“In an organisation of this size and complexity, employing around 15,000 members of staff, we can never completely eradicate the need to undertake difficult employment processes.
“We remain committed to educating and supporting managers on their responsibilities, and to nurturing an open, just and learning culture so that we can learn and improve when things go wrong.
“Our Trust prides itself on its positive workplace culture. Under the leadership of our outgoing Chief Executive Jennifer Welsh, our Trust was awarded Silver Investors in People status in April 2023, further cementing the Trust’s first IIP endorsement in 2018.”
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