A former HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) employee has been ordered to pay £20,000 in legal costs after an employment tribunal found his claims of disability discrimination were “vexatious” when he refused to return to the office after pandemic-related home working.
The tribunal, held in Liverpool, heard that Martin Bentley had suffered from longstanding anxiety, depression and stage-3 kidney disease and had a number of periods off work with ill-health since he joined the tax office in 2012.
In March 2020 he began home working when lockdown measures were introduced. In 2022 HMRC announced there was an expectation for staff to return to the office but Bentley refused and continued to work remotely until his retirement in 2024.
The tribunal heard that an 2019 an occupational-health report concluded he could not “cope with telephony without it making him ill.” However a later health report in 2021 found there was “no clinical barrier to working on the telephone” and no medical reason for his refusal to come to the office.
During this period he submitted a complaint alleging disability discrimination due to both his physical and mental health problems. However this was rejected by the tribunal.
The tribunal judge Dawn Shotter said: “In short, the medical advice was that there was no medical reason for him refusing to return to work in the office. It is notable that the claimant exaggerated his evidence, including that given in relation to his health conditions.
“The claimant has acted vexatiously, abusively, disruptively or otherwise unreasonably in either the bringing of the proceedings, or part of it, or the way that the proceedings, or part of it, have been conducted, and the claim had no reasonable prospect of success.”
