How Can Reporters and Others Affected by The Whistleblowing Process be Compensated for Psycho-Social Harm?

ABSTRACT Under Part IVA of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996), compensation for injury to feelings is available when UK workers suffer retaliation after raising concerns about wrongdoing. However, whistleblowers may suffer serious psychiatric harm and this article considers how and when damages for personal injury might be awarded. It also discusses the remedies that might be made available to others adversely affected by whistleblowing process. These others could be, inter alia, bystanders(people who have observed wrongdoing and/or retaliation but not reported it) and perpetrators (those who cover up wrongdoing or victimise a whistleblower). The authors outline the most common forms of reprisal and their possible impact on mental and physical health. They then discuss both the employment tribunal and civil court mechanisms for recovering damages for psychiatric illness as a form of personal injury. The article concludes by suggesting that those adversely affected by the whistleblowing process would benefit from extensions to the statutory provisions on protected disclosures. It also notes that in some circumstances whistleblowing might amount to a protected act within the meaning of Part 2 of the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010) and points out that treating whistleblowers as having a protected characteristic might inhibit reprisals by bringing into play the wide enforcement provisions in the anti-discrimination legislation.