About the author: Dr Caroline Gorden is the founder and director of CESI Learning and a published criminologist specialising in how credibility and guilt are constructed in formal processes. She holds a PhD in Criminology, has published over 25 peer-reviewed works on social exclusion, criminal justice, and institutional fairness, and is the author of Case Studies of Famous Trials and the Construction of Guilt and Innocence, published by Bristol Policy Press in 2022. She was previously a Senior Lecturer and Reader at Wrexham University, where she co-directed Cyfiawnder: The Social Inclusion Research Institute, and remains a Visiting Research Associate there. Since 2023 she has worked as a workplace coach specialising in adults with ADHD and autism. Her work at CESI Learning applies criminological research directly to workplace investigations, grievances, and disciplinary procedures.
This article is for: HR professionals, managers, and anyone responsible for conducting or overseeing formal processes involving neurodivergent employees. It sets out seven real employment tribunal cases involving autistic and ADHD employees, and what each one tells us about where workplace processes are most likely to go wrong. Tribunal claims involving neurodivergent employees have risen 95% over five years, with 517 cases recorded in 2025 alone — a 19% increase on the previous year. Autism and ADHD are now among the most commonly cited conditions. These cases are not abstract legal footnotes. They are a record of what happens when process design fails.
I want you to think about the last formal process you conducted or oversaw involving a neurodivergent employee.
Perhaps it went well. Perhaps you are not sure. Perhaps there is a case on your desk right now where you are trying to work out whether you have got it right. The seven cases below are not included here to alarm you or to suggest that HR professionals and managers are acting in bad faith — in most of the situations described, they were not. What they illustrate, rather, is how quickly a well-intentioned process can produce an unfair outcome when neurodivergent communication, behaviour, and stress responses are not properly understood or accounted for in the process itself.
That distinction matters, because it means the solution is not attitudinal. It is structural. It is about designing processes that work fairly for everyone, regardless of how they communicate.
Case 1: Wright v Cardinal Newman Catholic School
What happened: Mr Wright was a long-serving head of mathematics who had been diagnosed with autism and atrial fibrillation. His autism caused him to become, in his own words, “fixated” on issues, and over the course of his employment he raised multiple grievances relating to victimisation, bullying, and harassment. The school responded by suspending him, offering a financial settlement, and ultimately demoting him to a lower role, which he accepted under protest. When the situation was not resolved, he was dismissed on the grounds of an “irretrievable breakdown” in the working relationship.
The outcome: The London South Employment Tribunal found that Mr Wright had been unfairly dismissed, victimised, and discriminated against. His persistent complaints were held to be a manifestation of his autism rather than a conduct issue, and the school had failed to make reasonable adjustments. He was awarded £850,000 in compensation.
What this means for your organisation: When an employee raises repeated grievances, the first question should always be whether that behaviour could be a manifestation of disability. Dismissing someone on the grounds of “relationship breakdown” without exploring whether autism is contributing to the pattern of complaints is not a defensible position — and as this case demonstrates, it is an extremely costly one.
Case 2: Duncan v Fujitsu Services Ltd
What happened: D was an autistic employee who had significant difficulties with oral communication. His employer required him to telephone in when absent due to sickness, did not provide written agendas in advance of meetings, and did not make any meaningful adjustment to his communication requirements. A harassment claim was also upheld after the employer discussed D’s sickness absence with his mother without his knowledge or consent.
The outcome: The Employment Tribunal found that Fujitsu had failed to make reasonable adjustments in all three areas. The adjustments themselves were straightforward and low-cost: allowing written communication for sickness reporting, providing written agendas ahead of meetings, and respecting the employee’s data privacy. None of them required significant organisational change.
What this means for your organisation: Reasonable adjustments for autistic employees are often not expensive or complicated. They are about communication format, advance notice, and predictability. Failing to provide them — particularly when an employee’s needs are known — is a legal breach, not a resource question.
Case 3: Khorram v Capgemini
What happened: Ms Khorram was a senior cloud technologist with ADHD. Occupational health had specifically recommended that Capgemini provide ADHD and neurodiversity awareness training for her managers and colleagues — sessions designed to support her task clarity and performance. The company did not implement the training.
The outcome: The Employment Tribunal held that Capgemini’s failure to act on the occupational health recommendation breached its legal duty to make reasonable adjustments. Crucially, the tribunal made clear that reasonable adjustments are not limited to changes to an individual’s hours or physical workspace. They extend to cultural and environmental changes, including team training, where that training has been identified as necessary support.
What this means for your organisation: If occupational health recommends neurodiversity training as a reasonable adjustment, failing to provide it is a legal liability. This case also establishes an important principle more broadly: training is a reasonable adjustment, not an optional extra. Organisations that do not invest in equipping their managers with the knowledge to support neurodivergent employees are taking a measurable legal risk.
Case 4: Saunders v Peloton Interactive UK Ltd (2025)
What happened: Ciaran Saunders was an autistic employee working at Peloton’s London studio. The environment involved loud music and strong fragrances, both of which caused him significant sensory overload. He requested adjustments — a quieter working environment and scheduled breaks — but Peloton did not implement them. He subsequently went on sick leave and resigned, bringing a claim of disability discrimination.
The outcome: The Employment Tribunal upheld the claim, finding that while a loud and sensory-stimulating environment might be necessary for the business’s operations, Peloton had failed to provide sufficient reasonable adjustments. The tribunal held that the company should have considered moving Saunders to a role with minimal or no public-facing duties, given what it knew about his sensory needs.
What this means for your organisation: Sensory environment is a reasonable adjustment consideration, not a preference to be dismissed. Where an autistic employee has identified specific environmental barriers and requested support, an organisation that does nothing — or argues that the environment is operationally necessary — is on legally and ethically weak ground.
Case 5: Watson v Roke Manor Research
What happened: Mr Watson was a software engineer diagnosed with ADHD who struggled with timekeeping and focus. Rather than exploring reasonable adjustments, his Technical Lead confronted him in front of colleagues on multiple occasions, making comments related to his difficulties. Watson was ultimately dismissed. The employer’s approach throughout was characterised by the tribunal as attempting to make Watson “change his ways” rather than understanding or accommodating his disability.
The outcome: The Employment Tribunal upheld Watson’s disability discrimination claim, finding a lack of reasonable adjustment and identifying the Technical Lead’s conduct as directly related to Watson’s disability. The tribunal noted that the confrontational approach in front of colleagues would have had a significant impact on Watson’s anxiety levels.
What this means for your organisation: ADHD-related difficulties with timekeeping, focus, and task management are not conduct issues to be managed through confrontation. They are disability-related characteristics that trigger the duty to make reasonable adjustments. Managers who respond to these difficulties with public challenge rather than structured support are not just handling a performance issue badly — they are potentially generating a discrimination claim.
Case 6: James v [Children’s Centre employer]
What happened: Mr James was an autistic employee working as a Children’s Centre Worker. He requested reasonable adjustments because background music in the workplace caused difficulties with his concentration. In a meeting convened to discuss those adjustments, the CEO referred to them as “a pain in the a**e” and implied that James was “a weirdo.” A harassment claim followed.
The outcome: The Employment Tribunal upheld the harassment claim. The CEO’s language created a hostile and humiliating environment for Mr James, and the fact that it occurred in the context of a meeting specifically about his reasonable adjustments made it particularly serious.
What this means for your organisation: The language used by those in authority when discussing a neurodivergent employee’s adjustments is not a minor matter. A dismissive or derogatory response to a reasonable adjustment request — even in what might be intended as an informal or private conversation — can constitute harassment under the Equality Act 2010. The message for managers and senior leaders is straightforward: how you speak about adjustments, not just whether you grant them, is part of your legal obligation.
Case 7: Kaler v Insights ESC Limited (2024)
What happened: This case is more complex than the others, and that complexity is precisely why it is worth including. Ms Kaler had told her employer on multiple occasions that she believed she was autistic, both when working as a supply teacher and when she returned to a substantive role. When a dispute arose about her pay, she sent a series of aggressive and threatening emails to colleagues. A disciplinary process followed, and she was dismissed for gross misconduct.
The outcome: The Employment Appeal Tribunal ultimately held that the dismissal was justified given the extremity of her conduct. However — and this is the important point — it also found that the employer should have been on notice of her potential disability from the disclosures she had made. The employer’s failure to formally recognise or investigate her autism, despite repeated disclosure, was held to be a failure in its own right, even where the dismissal itself was ultimately upheld.
What this means for your organisation: An employer cannot ignore repeated disclosure of a neurodivergent condition and then rely on conduct alone to justify a dismissal. Even where the conduct is serious enough to warrant termination, a failure to engage with the disability dimension of a situation — to ask what role it may have played, and whether adjustments could have changed the trajectory — will be scrutinised by a tribunal. This case is a useful reminder that process and outcome are not the same thing. Getting the outcome right does not mean the process was lawful.
What these seven cases have in common
Taken together, these cases do not tell a story of deliberate cruelty or obvious bad intent. In most of them, the employer believed they were following their processes correctly. What they were missing was the knowledge and the structural framework to understand how autistic and ADHD employees experience those processes differently — and what that difference requires from the organisation.
The pattern is consistent across all seven: formal processes applied without adjustment, communication needs unmet, behaviour misread as conduct rather than recognised as disability, and a failure to ask the question that should come first in every case involving a neurodivergent employee: what does this person need from us in order to participate fairly in this process?
That question is not difficult to ask. But knowing what to do with the answer requires specific, grounded knowledge — the kind that generic awareness training rarely provides.
What CESI Learning offers
If you conduct or oversee workplace investigations, grievances, or disciplinary interviews, the CPD UK certified course Effective Interviewing of Autistic Employees in Investigations, Grievances, and Disciplinaries is designed directly for you. It is a four-hour online course, self-paced and available now, and it provides the specific knowledge and practical tools needed to conduct formal interviews that are both fair and defensible. It includes a practical guidebook with a pre-interview checklist, a letter to employee template, and a reasonable adjustments checklist for use in real time. The course costs £120 and is available at CESI COURSES – CESI Learning
For senior leaders and managers seeking a deeper, formally credentialled qualification, the CMI Level 7 Certificate in Autism-Informed Strategic Management and Leadership Practice opens for its first cohort in September 2026. This is the only CMI Level 7 qualification of its kind, mapping directly to the standard CMI Level 7 in Strategic Management and Leadership Practice while providing a specialist lens in autism-informed leadership that no other qualification offers. It covers the full arc of an autistic employee’s experience, from recruitment through to grievance, disciplinary, and investigation, grounded in sociology, psychology, and criminology. You can register your interest now at Join the Waitlist – CESI Learning — enrolment opens ahead of the September 2026 start date.
Fair processes don’t happen by accident. They happen by design.
Dr Caroline Gorden is the founder and director of CESI Learning. Her book, Case Studies of Famous Trials and the Construction of Guilt and Innocence, is published by Bristol Policy Press (2022). She can be found on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcarolinegorden
References
Gorden, C. and Birkbeck, C. (2022) Case Studies of Famous Trials and the Construction of Guilt and Innocence. Bristol: Bristol Policy Press.
Chandler, R., Russell, A. and Maras, K. (2018) ‘Compliance in autism: Does it occur and is it a problem?’, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 56, pp. 10-21.
Irwin Mitchell (2026) Employment Tribunal Cases Linked to Neurodiversity Almost Double in Five Years. Available at: https://www.irwinmitchell.com/news-and-insights/newsandmedia/2026/feb/employment-tribunal-cases-linked-to-neurodiversity-almost-double-in-five-years
Wright v Cardinal Newman Catholic School [2021] London South Employment Tribunal.
Duncan v Fujitsu Services Ltd, Employment Tribunal.
Khorram v Capgemini, Employment Tribunal.
Saunders v Peloton Interactive UK Ltd [2025] Employment Tribunal.
Watson v Roke Manor Research, Employment Tribunal.
Kaler v Insights ESC Limited [2024] Employment Appeal Tribunal.
