A whistleblowing supervisor who raised a series of health and safety concerns about Manx Utilities has been allowed to take forward his case for constructive dismissal.

Alfred Frank Jones worked for Manx Utilities for 26 years before handing in his notice in December 2017.

He alleges his departure amounted to constructive dismissal and he was therefore unfairly dismissed.

In one of a series of whistleblowing reports, Mr Jones highlighted the rotten condition of overhead poles later brought down by a storm, with live wires falling onto cars.

In a preliminary hearing, the employment tribunal ruled on whether 24 allegations raised by Mr Jones amounted to ’protected disclosures’ - legitimate whistleblowing.

This would mean his dismissal was automatically unfair if it could be shown it was the main reason for him feeling driven to hand in his notice.

Manx Utilities denies constructive dismissal and disputed every one of the 24 alleged protected disclosures.

None of Mr Jones’ reports was made in writing and neither did he raise them at health and safety committee meetings.

esteem

The tribunal heard the claimant had been held in high esteem at the authority, as shown by the efforts made by his bosses to keep him on after he first tendered his resignation in January 2017.

Tribunal chairman Douglas Stewart ruled at least some protected disclosures had been made and the case could now proceed to a constructive dismissal claim.

Among those disclosures deemed to have been substantiated was a report from 2015 concerning information from one employee about an incident which had the potential to be a criminal offence.

In 2016, Mr Jones made a report that an electrician may have been exposed to asbestos, although that turned out not to be the case.

In October 2016, he said he verbally reported the rotten condition of certain overhead poles. He said no action was taken, and the poles were brought down by Storm Doris in February 2017, when several with live wires came down on vehicles on the highway.

The overhead line manager told the tribunal the issues with the poles had been known about but Storm Doris arrived before other pressing priorities were dealt with.

Other reports were rejected as not being protected disclosures. They included those about a live cable being buried, a meter installer failing to identify reverse polarity at a customer’s home and an earthing issue elsewhere.

The tribunal ruled these reports were simply about Mr Jones doing his job diligently.