Healey, a safety representative at Excel, was unhappy with the entry in Excel’s accident relating to an accident that had occurred to a colleague who had been seriously injured when making as delivery to a supermarket. Healey made several visits to that supermarket and made approaches to the supermarket manager. Excel considered that the approaches Healey made to the manager amount to gross misconduct and he was dismissed.

The tribunal agreed with Excel’s version that Healey had gone on a clandestine mission to the supermarket in order to pry into the supermarket’s health and safety and his claim for unfair dismissal was dismissed. It could not be held to be a safety inspection as allowed under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 because the supermarket was not under Excel’s control.

Upon appeal, however, the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) found that Healey had the right to ‘inspect’, ‘investigate’ and ‘examine’ in relation to safety issues concerning employees that he represented and a visit to the supermarket to look at the accident book was not an unreasonable part of such investigations. He was found to be unfairly dismissed.