Tipping The Scales….Whose Evidence Is It Anyway?

Following the conclusion of an Employment Tribunal hearing, it is not uncommon for witnesses to want to better understand the importance of their evidence, the role that it played in formulating the Employment Judge's decision and the weight that the Employment Judge attached to it.

In the same token, where cases turn on the facts of a specific incident or incidents or when there is little contemporaneous documentation to support the parties' positions, it is likely that the outcome of the hearing will turn on whose evidence the Employment Judge prefers.

Despite the significance of witness credibility in Employment Tribunal proceedings, there has been very little case law over the years which specifically deals with the steps that an Employment Judge must take in order to explain why he or she prefers one witness' evidence over another.