HMRC worker ordered to pay £20,000 after refusing to return to office after lockdown

A former HMRC worker has been ordered to pay £20,000 after losing a tribunal case he brought when he refused to return to the office after lockdown.

Martin Bentley is said to have been “prepared to use whatever means he could” to avoid returning to the office after the Covid pandemic.

Mr Bentley attempted to sue HMRC for disability discrimination based on his anxiety and depression, and stage 3 kidney disease – but the tribunal in Liverpool ruled there was “no medical reason” for him not to return to work.

He has now been ordered to pay £20,000 as a tribunal judge found he had acted “vexatiously” in bringing the proceedings, adding he had “no reasonable prospect of success”.

Mr Bentley began working for HMRC as an assistant officer in 2012 and had various ill-health absences during his employment.

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He is said to have suffered with anxiety, depression and kidney disease for over two decades, the tribunal heard. He also refused to make telephone calls after a 2019 occupational health report found he couldn’t “cope with telephony without it making him ill”.

But a 2021 report found he was “fit for work” and that there was “no clinical barrier to working on the telephone”, however, it found his “personality and emotional response” weren’t “best suited” to the work.

In March 2020, he was told to work from home due to the Covid lockdown, but later refused to return to the office when told to do so despite his failing performance.

In early 2022, his bosses announced there was an expectation for all staff to return to the office, but Mr Bentley refused and did not return until he retired in 2024.

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The tribunal panel found that HMRC “reluctantly” made adjustments for Mr Bentley, despite his poor performance and the fact that there was “no medical reason why the claimant’s contract should be changed permanently from office working to home working”.

But Mr Bentley submitted a formal concern form alleging disability discrimination and victimisation after being placed on a personal improvement plan.

“He was prepared to use whatever means he could to achieve this end in order that he never worked in the office and never saw his managers physically face to face,” a tribunal statement read.

“In the years leading to his retirement in September 2024, the claimant achieved this end as he has never worked in the office again and the first time he met his line manager face to face was at this final hearing.”

The judgment said: “In short, the medical advice was that there was no medical reason for [Mr Bentley] refusing to return to work in the office.”

Employment Judge Dawn Shotter has now ordered Mr Bentley to pay £20,000 to HMRC for acting “vexatiously and abusively” as the claims had “no reasonable prospect of success”.

“It is notable that the claimant exaggerated his evidence, including that given in relation to his health conditions,” Judge Shotter concluded.

“The claimant has acted vexatiously, abusively, disruptively or otherwise unreasonably in either the bringing of the proceedings, or part of it, or the way that the proceedings, or part of it, have been conducted, and the claim had no reasonable prospect of success.”