A former secretary can take legal action over her claims she was penalised for complaining about being served mouldy cheese.

Ms M Wright claimed to an employment tribunal she had been punished for “whistleblowing” and then unfairly dismissed by SFE Chetwode Ltd, of Melton Mowbray.

Documents from the December hearing published on Thursday said she had been served two pots of cheese with a jacket potato on site.

But her employers said the cheese was served with pepper – and employment judge Richard Adkinson said it was not possible from photos to determine which was the case.

He said she would be allowed to progress a claim over the cheese incident, if she first pays a deposit of £1,000.

Ms Wright, who had joined the firm in June 2023, said her cheese pots complaint took place in May 2024 and she had been told to bin the cheese and “be discreet”.

She alleged this showed “deliberate concealment of health and safety endangerment”.

SFE told the tribunal that about the same time, colleagues had begun raising “concerns” with Ms Wright’s behaviour and a meeting was held which resulted in no further outcome.

Ms Wright said she felt her complaints had been “belittled”.

A further disciplinary hearing was then held in July, after SFE alleged she had been “rude and unproductive”, and she was dismissed “with immediate effect”.

Ms Wright said she had not been permitted a trade union representative at this meeting.

But Mr Adkinson, who noted Ms Wright had used AI service ChatGPT to aid her submissions, struck out all her claims of unfair dismissal stating while her fears over the “microbiological safety” of the cheese alone may have had merit they were collectively “doomed to fail”.

He added as an aside that it was clear that she “felt genuinely aggrieved” by her treatment but felt she did not “understand if or how that is legally justified”.

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