A judge at an employment tribunal ruled that Wetherspoons must pay Brandon Halstead £25,412 after he was found to have been placed at a ‘substantial disadvantage’ due to his autism
Wetherspoons has been ordered to pay an autistic pub worker more than £25,000 after he was found to have been “persecuted” by his managers’ response to him using his staff discount to pay for a family meal.
Brandon Halstead, a kitchen porter at The Albany Palace pub in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, was scolded by his boss after using the discount to pay for a dinner with his mum and five relatives at another of the chain’s locations in August 2023. He was accused of “dishonesty” in the course of his duties and “abuse” of the Wetherspoons employee discount policy and disciplined by his bosses, leaving him feeling “persecuted and let down”.
An employment tribunal has ruled Mr Halstead, who was later signed off with workplace stress, must be paid £25,412 after his autism placed him at a “substantial disadvantage”.
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The Daily Mail reports the porter was summoned to a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct following an allegation that he had been “dishonest” and abused the policy to get 20 percent – £19.17 – off his meal. The employment trial in Bristol heard Mr Halstead, who started working in the pub in September 2018, had told his manager he was unaware the discount was only applicable to groups of four or less.
During a shift later that month, the tribunal heard Mr Halstead was informed his shift manager wanted to see him, and that they were meeting to “investigate a potential violation of the employee discount policy”. He also confirmed during the meeting that he used his employee discount for himself and more than three other people, with the panel hearing that he did not know there was a limit on the number.
Mr Halsted then went on to tell his boss that his mother had acess to his Wetherspoons app to look at his rota timetables, something he was told was a breach of data security policy. Another meeting, this time involving his mum Sarah, was arranged, when she informed her son’s manager that she required this access to aid Mr Halstead in planning bus times and lifts to and from work.
The mother and son explained the effects of his autism, the tribunal heard, adding that someone would have to show him the particular policies he was alleged to have broken, or to go through them with him during a sit down. Afterwards, the tribunal heard, Mr Halstead was sent a letter telling him to attend a gross misconduct disciplinary hearing.
Alongside being accused of “dishonesty” and “abuse” of the employee discount policy, he was accused of failing to comply with data protection and confidentiality policy. The entire process left the autistic worker with “significant stress and anxiety”, and he was signed off work with stress.
An occupational health report later detailed that he felt “persecuted and let down”. Ms Halstead raised a formal grievance on her son’s behalf in September. Senior Wetherspoons officials tried to arrange a grievance meeting at Ms Halstead’s request, with the mum later saying return to work was “completely out of the question”, and said after she was asked about reasonable adjustments for her son that bosses had “failed to make any reasonable adjustments” during the process.
The meeting never took place, and during ongoing communications to discuss her son’s potential return to work, Ms Halstead “requested a compensatory gesture”. Wetherspoons later denied the mum’s request for compensation or a “goodwill gesture” for the situation, and she brought claims of disability related harassment and failure to make reasonable adjustments to the tribunal. At the time, the tribunal heard there was a “strict zero tolerance policy” for “anyone that breached the discount policy”.
Overseeing the tribunal, employment Judge Murdoch said that while she did find there was unwarranted conduct towards Mr Halstead, she did not rule it as harassment. Instead, she found applying the zero tolerance policy to an individual with autism “who did not know the rule and was not dishonest in his misuse of it” was not a “proportional response”.
He upheld the reasonable adjustment claim, saying: “We find that the application of this standard procedure puts [Mr Halstead] at a substantial disadvantage compared to someone without the [his] autism. A comparator, although they may find immediate suspension on full pay to be stressful, would not necessarily feel the intensity of stress and anxiety that [Mr Halstead] did.
“Additionally, in the case of someone without autism, they might have known about the rules of the discount policy and broken them dishonestly, or they might have been dishonest when asked if they had broken the rules. In this kind of case, we understand that [Wetherspoons] might want to suspend them while they were investigating, but in [Mr Halstead’s] case, there was no evidence whatsoever of dishonesty.
“[Mr Halstead] admitted straight away to breaking the rules of the discount policy because he was unaware of the rules. A typical feature of autism is a strong desire to adhere to rules.”
The Mirror has contacted Wetherspoons for comment.
