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

A former HMRC worker has been ordered to pay £20,000 after losing a court case for refusing to return to the office after lockdown.

Martin Bentley is said to be “ready to use any means he can” to avoid returning to the office after the Covid-19 outbreak.

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

He has now been ordered to pay £20,000 after the tribunal judge found he had acted “vexatiously” in starting the case, adding that he had “no reasonable prospect of success”.

Mr Bentley started working for HMRC as a deputy clerk in 2012 and suffered a number of health problems during his time.

The court heard he was said to have suffered from anxiety, depression and kidney disease for more than two decades. He also refused to take phone calls after a 2019 occupational health report found he “couldn’t handle a phone call without making himself sick.”

However, a 2021 report found that he was “suitable for the job” and had “no clinical barriers to working on the phone,” but that his “personality and emotional response” were not “best suited” to the job.

In March 2020, he was told to work from home due to the Covid-19 lockdown, but later refused to return to the office despite the decline in his 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 found that HMRC made adjustments “reluctantly” despite Mr Bentley’s poor performance and “there was no medical reason why the claimant’s contract should be permanently changed from office work to home working”.

However, after being included in the Personal Development Plan (PIP), Mr Bentley lodged a formal concern form alleging disability discrimination and victimisation.

In the statement made by the court, it was said: “He was ready to use any means he could to achieve this goal, never to work in the office and not to meet physically face to face with his managers.”

“The plaintiff achieved this aim as he never worked in the office again in the years leading up to his retirement in September 2024 and this final hearing was the first time he met his line manager face to face.”

The decision said: “In short, the medical advice was that there was no medical reason. [Mr Bentley] “I refuse to go back to working in the office.”

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

Judge Shotter said: “It is noteworthy that the plaintiff exaggerated his evidence, including the evidence he gave regarding his medical condition.”

“The plaintiff has acted in a detrimental, abusive, disruptive or otherwise unreasonable manner in initiating or part of the proceedings, or in the manner in which the proceedings or part of them are conducted, and the claim has no reasonable prospect of success.”