The Shelly Mercer Cummins record begins with a supposedly fresh HR face from Kent. Cummins presented distance from Darlington as independence. Her own witness statement reveals something rather less comforting: Michael Abbott supplied the material, external legal advisers helped draft the charge sheet, and Steve Morley approved the finished product.
So much for the neutral outsider.
Within days, Mercer was helping drive a mentally unwell employee towards a potentially employment-ending hearing. She knew my fit note named anxiety, depression and stress. She also knew I had asked for the meeting to wait until I was medically fit. Nevertheless, Cummins refused a postponement, dismissed a requested risk assessment and kept adding evidence until the afternoon before the hearing.
Mercer later told the tribunal that I was “playing games”. The documents tell a different story. They show an HR professional helping Cummins compress a sprawling health, pay and grievance dispute into a rushed dismissal process, then treating my objections to that process as further evidence against me.
The Independent HR Generalist Arrived With Lawyers
Mercer says she became involved on 24 January 2023 because I had complained about local HR. She was based in Sandwich and had never dealt with me before. That distance supplied the appearance of independence.
However, the substance came from inside the same machine. At paragraphs 6 to 9 of her witness statement, Mercer says Abbott gave her the relevant emails and documents. She then drafted the invitation with help from Cummins’ external legal advisers. Morley reviewed the draft and produced the final version.
This matters because the letter did not read like a neutral invitation to establish facts. It announced that Cummins already believed my conduct amounted to “serious insubordination”. It alleged that my emails were intended to antagonise, that I had deliberately refused to engage with grievances and that I may have tried to subvert the HR process.
Those were not modest questions. They were conclusions dressed as discussion points.
The letter also offered three routes to the same exit: capability, gross misconduct and an alleged irretrievable breakdown in the employment relationship. If one theory failed, another remained waiting behind it. Cummins had not arranged a fact-finding conversation. It had commissioned a lawyer-assisted dismissal menu.
Less Than Four Working Days And Fourteen Zip Files
Mercer emailed the invitation at 16:48 on Thursday, 2 February. The hearing was fixed for 10:00 on Wednesday, 8 February.
After I asked for the evidence, she sent thirteen zip folders during the evening of 6 February. A fourteenth followed on 7 February. Cummins later relied upon the fact that much of the material consisted of correspondence already in my possession. That misses the point spectacularly.
Possessing individual emails is not the same as receiving a properly organised case against you. Cummins had spent days, with HR and external legal input, selecting and framing the material. I received a digital skip and was expected to work out which fragments supported which potentially career-ending allegation.
Then, at 15:22 on 7 February, Mercer added Appendix 3. It contained fresh Twitter material and further overnight emails. The hearing remained scheduled for 10:00 the next morning.
That left less than nineteen hours. Sleep was apparently an optional adjustment.
Mercer later complained about the number of emails I sent in response. Yet Cummins had served a sprawling, multi-route case on a sick employee, drip-fed the supporting material and continued changing the evidential picture on the eve of the hearing.
A high volume of urgent objections was hardly mysterious. It was the foreseeable result of the process she helped create.
The Office Had Walls, Therefore I Was Safe
By 6 February, I had reluctantly confirmed that I would attend in person. I asked for nearby toilets, a first aider, regular breaks, permission to record and a risk assessment. These requests arose because I was disabled, signed off sick and saying that attendance would be against medical advice.
Mercer agreed to several practical arrangements. A taxi could be booked. Marketing Suite A sat near toilets and opposite Occupational Health. Breaks would be available, and Cummins would not physically stop me recording.
Then came the masterpiece:
“Since you will only be attending a meeting in the office facility of the DEP site, it is not necessary to complete a Risk Assessment.”
Apparently, a room becomes clinically safe once somebody calls it Marketing Suite A.
The risk I had identified was not an exposed cable or a loose ceiling tile. It was the psychological effect of forcing a mentally unwell employee into a dismissal hearing while his condition was deteriorating. Mercer’s own statement accepts that the fit note referred to anxiety, depression and stress. Morley later admitted that Cummins lacked current Occupational Health advice.
Their substitute for an assessment was to watch me. Mercer says they would have looked for distress, offered a break and possibly adjourned. In other words, Cummins rejected advance consideration of the danger and proposed waiting for visible harm instead.
Fucking marvellous.
At 18:17 on 7 February, I explained that my recovery had deteriorated sharply. I had gone from walking and using a gym to spending a week in bed. My GP had been contacted, and I said I could not attend without the requested safeguard.
Mercer later converted that sequence into game-playing. The more obvious interpretation is that a sick employee tried to attend, asked for protection, received a category error about office facilities and finally withdrew when his health worsened.
The Steve Morley Twitter Demonstration
The strangest episode followed Mercer’s late Twitter appendix.
Cummins said it had attributed tweets to me because the account appeared under the name “Lee”, alongside other contextual material. I responded facetiously. Using the same visible handle, I changed the display presentation to Steve Morley, added his photograph and sarcastically asked whether Cummins was sure the account belonged to me.
The point was simple: a display name and profile picture can be changed. They are not, by themselves, reliable proof of authorship. I deleted the alteration shortly afterwards.
Was it refined advocacy? No. It was an angry, absurd demonstration made during an escalating dispute. However, it was not a genuine attempt to persuade the public that Morley had written those tweets. The unchanged handle and the immediate emails to Mercer made the point apparent.
Mercer chose melodrama. At paragraphs 51 and 52 of her statement, she calls the episode “utterly bizarre” and describes “producing fake tweets” involving the site’s most senior manager as extremely serious.
Her interpretation neatly proves the attribution problem I was mocking. She saw a changed face and display name, then instantly leapt to a grand theory about impersonation. The supplied chain shows no attempt to clarify it before the hearing.
Morley’s own statement was more restrained: he called it strange and said he wanted to reserve judgment until he could discuss it with me.
That discussion never happened. Mercer’s later witness statement supplied the sinister meaning anyway.
An Agreed Pause Became Deliberate Refusal
The grievance history received the same treatment.
Emails with Suzanne Shelbourne show that I did not simply refuse to engage. On 1 December 2022, I said I would provide a detailed formal grievance. The next day, I proposed written questions because earlier meeting notes had misrepresented me.
Shelbourne preferred a meeting, so we agreed that the notes could be reviewed together before the call ended. I replied that this sounded fair.
On 13 December, I apologised for the delay. I explained that I was compiling a comprehensive Ethics complaint, was then on annual leave and would try to prioritise the grievance in the new year.
Shelbourne answered: “No problem”. She confirmed that Cummins would wait to hear from me.
The grievance remained incomplete. That is fair to say.
“Deliberately refused to engage” is not.
Nothing in the supplied chain shows Shelbourne accusing me of obstruction. Instead, it records negotiation over a trustworthy format, an agreed solution and a mutually understood pause. Mercer’s solicitor-assisted invitation later turned that unfinished process into evidence of bad faith.
This distinction matters. A stalled grievance may be inconvenient. It does not magically prove that the complainant raised serious concerns only to sabotage the employer.
My Emails Counted Until They Contained A Defence
Mercer’s witness statement ends with a particularly revealing flourish. She says I was playing games, behaving erratically and apparently interested only in sending accusatory emails.
According to paragraph 80, I “didn’t give the process or Steve a chance”.
Yet her chronology records repeated challenges to the allegations, requests for evidence, health warnings, proposed adjustments and an initial agreement to attend. Morley later made the contradiction explicit. He said I provided no written representations, “although” I had sent many emails challenging the process and allegations.
There it is.
The emails counted when Cummins wanted evidence of tone, volume or alleged antagonism. They stopped counting when those same messages contained my account.
I formally declined to prepare a separate submission after explaining that my health had deteriorated and that I was not well enough to do so. Cummins may criticise that decision. It cannot honestly pretend it possessed no explanation from me.
Mercer also says delay might have encouraged further antagonistic conduct. That is a remarkable reason to accelerate a hearing involving a mentally unwell employee.
The worsening behaviour was not treated as a possible warning that the process itself was causing harm. It became a reason to press harder.
Shelly Mercer’s Contribution
Mercer did not sign the dismissal letter. Her role was arguably more useful, although, having cross-examined her, plainly no more intellectually demanding than moving the paperwork along.
She helped turn Abbott’s file into a legal-adviser-assisted accusation. She managed the evidence dump, added new material on the final afternoon and rejected the requested risk assessment with an answer about office accommodation.
Afterwards, she characterised the resulting distress and resistance as gamesmanship.
Distance from Darlington did not make that independent. It merely gave Cummins a clean HR accent for the same dirty process.
The Shelly Mercer Cummins record does not require me to invent her motives. Her own words are enough. When faced with a sick employee saying the process was worsening his mental health, she helped preserve the timetable and later blamed him for failing to survive it neatly.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Shelly Mercer witness statement, particularly paragraphs 3–9, 23–27, 31–52 and 63–80 – held by TCAP.
- Cummins invitation to formal meeting, dated 2 February 2023 – held by TCAP.
- Mercer and Thompson email chain, 2–8 February 2023 – held by TCAP.
- Suzanne Shelbourne grievance email chain, 1–14 December 2022 – held by TCAP.
- Steve Morley witness statement, particularly paragraphs 43–55 and 65–69 – held by TCAP.