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Wetherspoons has been ordered to pay an autistic worker £25,000 after he was 'persecuted' for using his staff discount to help pay for a meal with his family. Brandon Halstead was scolded by his boss after he used his discount on a meal for seven people. The kitchen porter, who saved £19.17 with the 20 per cent discount, was unaware that he had breached employee policy which states that it can only be applied to groups of four or less. The pub worker, who is autistic, was summoned to a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct over an allegation that he had been 'dishonest' and abused the policy. Mr Halstead suffered 'significant stress and anxiety' over the ordeal, which ultimately led to him being signed off sick from work. He said the accusation left him feeling 'persecuted'. Mr Halstead took his bosses to an employment tribunal and won a disability discrimination claim. He won £25,412 in compensation after a judge found Wetherspoons failed to make any reasonable adjustments during the process. The judge said Wetherspoons reacted disproportionately in their reaction to the breach of the rules. The employment tribunal, held in Bristol, was told that Mr Halstead started working in the pub in September 2018. In August 2023, while he was working at The Albany Place in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, Mr Halstead and his mother Sarah went for a meal at one of the chain's pubs, alongside five members of their family who were visiting them. Mr Halstead placed the order using the employee discount policy of 20 per cent. In total, they saved £19.17. The panel said that both Mr Halstead and his mother were 'unaware' that one of the rules of the discount policy was that it could only be applied to a group of up to four people. It was heard that during a shift later that month, Mr Halstead was told that his shift manager wanted to see him. The shift manager informed Mr Halstead that they were meeting to 'investigate a potential violation of the employee discount policy'. During this meeting, Mr Halstead confirmed that he had used his employee discount on an order for himself and more than three additional people. He said that he did not know there was a limit on the group number, the panel heard. During the conversation, Mr Halstead also told his boss that his mother had access to his Wetherspoons app to look at his rota timetables. He was told that this was a breach of the data security policy. Mr Halstead 'apologised for the inconvenience' and said it would not happen again. A second investigation into the matter was held later that month, at which Mr Halstead's mother was also in attendance. During this meeting, she explained that she had access to the app on her phone, as she writes down his rota so Mr Halstead can plan bus times and lifts from his mother to and from work. They both explained the effects of his autism and said that someone would have needed to show him the relevant policies if they wanted him to read them or sit him down and go through it with him, the panel said. Mr Halstead was subsequently sent a letter ordering him to attend a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct. The allegations were of 'dishonesty' in the course of duties in his 'abuse' of the employee discount policy and failure to comply with data protection and confidentiality policy. The ordeal had caused Mr Halstead 'significant stress and anxiety' and he was signed off work with stress. In an occupational health report, he reported feeling 'persecuted and let down'. In September, Ms Halstead raised a formal grievance on behalf of her son. Senior officials at Wetherspoons wrote to the kitchen porter to arrange a grievance meeting but Ms Halstead responded saying he could not attend, acknowledging the 'very short notice' they had been given. Wetherspoons later tried to rearrange and asked if the employee wanted to request any adjustments. Ms Halstead told officials that a 'return to work was completely out of the question' and noted that Wetherspoons had 'failed to make any reasonable adjustments' for Mr Halstead during the process. No grievance meeting took place. In ongoing communication to discuss a potential return to work for Mr Halstead, his mother 'requested a compensatory gesture' from Wetherspoons. Wetherspoons said that it was not going to offer the employee any compensation or 'goodwill gesture' for the situation. Meanwhile, the kitchen porter returned to work after a 'successful' informal meeting. Mr Halstead brought his claims of disability related harassment and failure to make reasonable adjustments to the tribunal. It was heard that Wetherspoons had 'a strict zero tolerance policy at that time for anyone that breached the discount policy'. While the judge did find that the conduct towards Mr Halstead was unwarranted, they ruled that it was not harassment. Employment Judge Murdoch said Wetherspoons responded 'disproportionately' to the allegations of a breach of employee discount policy. 'Applying this zero tolerance policy to someone with autism who did not know the rule and was not dishonest in his misuse of it is not a proportionate response,' she said. The judge upheld the reasonable adjustment claim. She outlined Wetherspoons' zero tolerance policy, and said: '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.
