Sacked over GPS data with no key: 7 years to an unfair ruling

In 2019, NSL Ltd sacked Dean Bean, a severely dyslexic parking warden, over GPS data that only made sense in colour, printed for him in black and white with no key. Seven years on, the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that dismissal unfair. The case shows what a reasonable adjustment failure looks like: a printout, not a diagnosis.

What NSL accused him of

Bean had worked as a Civil Enforcement Officer since 2007, first for the local council, then for NSL Ltd after a 2017 contract transfer. He had a clean disciplinary record. On Good Friday, 19 April 2019, he patrolled Windsor using a handheld device that logs both a manual entry and a GPS location.

That device crashed and restarted four times that morning. NSL later compared his manual log against the GPS trail and found a gap: Bean's notes placed him on Alma Road and Ward Royal around 2:09pm to 2:28pm. NSL said the GPS data showed him sitting in the coach park rest area instead.

NSL called this "ghost logging", accusing him of recording patrols he never did. It's the kind of allegation that can end in dismissal for gross misconduct, and it did. He was suspended on 30 April 2019, investigated twice, and brought to a disciplinary hearing on 21 May 2019.

NSL dismissed him on 26 June 2019. He appealed internally on 4 July, was heard on 31 July, and lost that appeal on 28 November 2019. By the end of that year, he'd gone through every internal step without seeing evidence he could actually read.

If you're facing a disciplinary process built on a data trail, the format that data arrives in matters as much as what it shows.

Why the tribunal called the dismissal unfair

NSL's case rested on GPS pins shown in colour on an interactive online map. Before Bean's disciplinary hearing, NSL printed screenshots of that map in black and white and handed them to him with no key. The tribunal later found that "overlapping pins and labels obscured the critical image", and that "the quality of reproduction was poor".

The colour coding wasn't a minor detail; it was the whole point of the evidence. It disappeared the moment NSL printed it in black and white. Even NSL's own disciplinary manager needed hours on the live, coloured system to work out what she was looking at, access Bean himself never had.

Bean has severe dyslexia. At his investigation meeting, he was also asked to sign handwritten notes he could not read clearly. Nobody offered him a typed copy, more time, or help reading either document before he was expected to respond to it.

The Reading Employment Tribunal ruled on 6 November 2023, by majority, that this made Bean's dismissal unfair. It also upheld a reasonable adjustments failure, plus discrimination and harassment claims tied to the same facts. The panel wasn't unanimous.

One lay member disagreed on the dismissal itself. That member pointed to Bean's clean twelve-year record and the handheld device's known reliability problems as reasons to doubt the whole basis for gross misconduct. The majority still ruled against him, but the split shows how close a call this was even for the people reading the same evidence.

Separately, and this is the part that trips people up, the tribunal found that Bean had in fact logged false locations. Unfair process and a true accusation can sit in the same judgment. The tribunal treated them as two different questions, not one.

A dismissal can be unfair because of how evidence was presented to you, even when the underlying accusation turns out to be true.

The legal tests behind the ruling

Three different parts of the Equality Act 2010 were in play here. Section 20 covers reasonable adjustments: did your employer know, or should it have known, you'd be disadvantaged, and did it act on that? That's the ground that held up on appeal.

Section 19 covers indirect discrimination, and it needs more than proof that you personally were disadvantaged. It needs evidence that a rule or practice disadvantages people who share your characteristic more generally. The EAT found the original tribunal had only looked at Bean's individual disadvantage, with no group-level finding, so that part was sent back.

Section 26 covers harassment: unwanted conduct related to a disability that violates someone's dignity or creates a hostile environment. The EAT found the tribunal hadn't properly explained how signing unreadable notes met that specific test, even though the underlying facts weren't in dispute. Both grounds go back for fresh reasoning, not a fresh trial of the facts.

There's also a quieter mechanism at work in the numbers: a "Polkey reduction". Even where a dismissal is procedurally unfair, a tribunal can decide the same outcome was coming anyway, and cut the compensation that reflects lost earnings accordingly. Because Bean was found to have genuinely falsified his logs, his was cut to zero, leaving only a flat basic award tied to his years of service.

Winning on reasonable adjustments and winning on discrimination are legally separate fights, and you can win one without the other.

What survived on appeal, and what didn't

NSL appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal on ten grounds. Judge Tucker's ruling, published 15 September 2026, split the difference. The unfair dismissal finding stood, along with the basic factual finding that Bean genuinely couldn't read the evidence he was given.

The indirect discrimination and harassment findings didn't survive intact, for the legal reasons above. Final disposal on those two grounds is still pending further submissions, so the story isn't fully closed. But the part most workers will recognise is already settled: hand someone evidence they can't process, then dismiss them for what it shows, and you have a fairness problem.

A tribunal win on process doesn't guarantee a payout if a separate misconduct finding goes against you too.

What this means for you

If you're dyslexic and handed evidence in a disciplinary, performance, or grievance process, colour-coded charts, spreadsheets, handwritten notes, or anything dense, you don't have to work it out alone. Asking for help with it is a reasonable adjustment under section 20 of the Equality Act 2010, not a favour someone can wave away.

Four things are worth asking for, in writing, before you respond to anything:

• A key or plain-English explanation of any coded, colour-based, or dense data, before you're expected to comment on it.
• A typed copy of anything handwritten, or someone reading it through with you.
• Extra time to review the material before a meeting or hearing.
• A written record of your request, sent by email so there's a timestamp on it.

A real example

You could write: "I have dyslexia and can't interpret this document in its current format. Please could I have a key explaining what the colours and codes mean, or the data in another format, and reasonable extra time to review it before I respond." For more ways to phrase requests like this, see our workplace strategies guide.

Bean's case shows what happens when nobody does this. His employer had the explanation ready but never gave it to him until after he'd already lost his job. If you haven't told your employer about your dyslexia yet, the disclosure guide covers when and how to do it.

If they already know, our Access to Work guide covers funding for the kind of adjustments discussed here, before you're ever in a disciplinary room needing them. It's easier to arrange a reading format or extra time as a standing adjustment than to ask for it mid-hearing.

Access to Work can fund a workplace needs assessment, assistive technology, and a support worker or coach, on top of whatever your employer already provides. Getting that assessment on file means your reading and format needs are already documented if a dispute ever comes up. It's a slower, calmer version of what Bean had to fight for after the fact.

If you can't read the evidence in front of you, say so in writing before you answer it, not after you've already replied.