A Didcot warehouse manager with 22 years’ service has won his unfair dismissal claim against DHL
This was after a judge found the logistics giant failed to stand up to National Grid when the energy company demanded he be removed from its site.
Employment Judge Findlay ruled that first line manager Mick Nutt, 56, suffered a “substantial injustice” when he lost his job despite DHL’s own investigation clearing him of any wrongdoing over alleged missing stock at National Grid’s strategic spares warehouse in Didcot.
An Accenture audit in autumn 2023 had suggested high‑value parts were missing, but Mr Nutt and his line manager quickly located the items elsewhere in the warehouse and a DHL stock expert later concluded he had followed procedures and had “no case to answer”.
Despite that internal verdict, National Grid’s senior manager at the site, Sally Nulty, remained adamant Mr Nutt should go, describing him in an email as “detrimental to NG” and formally requiring DHL to take him off the contract under a clause allowing the client to insist on staff changes for “poor performance”.
DHL accepted the instruction, suspended Mr Nutt and barred him from the Didcot site while it considered his future.
The tribunal heard Mr Nutt, from Abingdon, was the only earner in his household.
Judge Findlay found DHL only offered him a handful of realistic options and did not “pull out all the stops”, as case law expects where a client’s stance threatens obvious unfairness to an employee.
A key vacancy at DHL’s Accord site in Didcot was on a lower grade with a pay cut of up to £10,000 a year. Mr Nutt turned it down because of the financial hit and demotion.
The tribunal said DHL should at that stage have explored protecting his existing pay and grade, something its HR team later accepted could be done but did not tell him about until an appeal hearing in March.
Judge Findlay also criticised DHL for failing to send National Grid the report that exonerated Mr Nutt.
While National Grid’s insistence on his removal was accepted as a potentially fair reason to consider dismissal, the judge held DHL’s handling of the case fell outside the “range of reasonable responses” and was therefore unfair.
Mr Nutt will receive compensation for unfair dismissal, but his award will be reduced by 10 per cent under the Polkey principle to reflect the judge’s view there was only a slim chance he would still have lost his job even if DHL had done everything it reasonably should have.
