Morning CdC

I don't think that what the Judge said in sentencing has been published in the public domain.

I share your concerns about the potential implications of this case and how it has been covered in the media.

I also suspect that the Judge had similar reservations as the sentence was actually relatively small.

Maximum penalty envisaged in print in the Sentencing Guidelines is £10m for a "Large" organisation, defined as turnover of  "£50m and over", but the Guidelines do say that it might be necessary to go beyond that £10m for a "Very large organisation" and Morrisons would fall into that category.

So, perhaps the starting point for the sentencing decision might be £100m or more, in which case the penalty imposed was small. 

More difficult as whilst this case went to trial, we don't the basis of why a jury found the defendant guilty or HOW guilty the jury (or Judge) thought the defendant to be.

Given that the onus is on the defendant to prove that it did all that was reasonably practicable [on the balance of probabilities] any defendant faces a very high bar when it comes to defending any charge where the test is one of reasonable practicability.

So, perhaps only just a tiny bit guilty, in which case you would expect the sentence to be reduced so as to reflect that.

P

Edited by user 04 May 2023 18:08:13(UTC)  | Reason: Clarification- thinking of another case

In a way not so different, they are saying there were options that were not taken by the company in place of dismissal, in the same way there were options that Morrisons also did not take to reduce the frequency of using the stairs.

It is concerning this may lead employers not to employee someone with epilepsy in the first place, and just find some other excuse not to employ.

Not disagreeing with you Peter, yes if they considered both things (and be able to demonstrate that they had) they would have been less likely to discriminate. Again, I have a little sympathy with the employer. In reality it is not always possible to split out tasks economically or practically, especially in a production type environment. Most companies now run very lean, because they have to in order to survive, so no spare capacity, no wiggle room. They just needed to go though the process better and more transparently. The reports even say there was no malice involved, they appeared to have considered the concept of other jobs, but if there are none then there are none. Their decision may possibly have been the correct one just the journey was at fault.

This is the sort of thing companies still need to get much better at.

Chris