Angus Menzies and Simon Horsfield received a detailed complaint about Horsfield Menzies Senior Associate Sam Butler on 23 March 2025. Daniel Rubin received it too. All three men were directors and controlling shareholders. Their own website presented all three as partners.
The complaint did not fall into a generic inbox, disappear through a contact form or get eaten by an administrator called Enquiries. It went directly to the men at the top. The Employment Tribunal case number was in the subject line, and the email began “Dear All Partners”.
It alleged misuse of disability-related medical information, contact with my GP or medical centre, misleading statements, aggressive costs pressure and obstructive case correspondence. It asked the firm to investigate, explain its position and stop any misconduct.
This was the quiet version. There was no blog article or permanent category, and I made no attempt to teach Google the names Angus Menzies and Simon Horsfield. A disabled litigant in person simply handed three experienced employment lawyers a private opportunity to deal with an ugly complaint about their own firm.
No investigation outcome was communicated to me.
Sixteen months later, Horsfield Menzies launched a Workplace Investigations Unit. It now sells employers the works: impartiality, sensitivity, triage, evidence review, witness interviews, findings, recommendations and quality assurance.
Excellent. All the things its own complainant never saw.
When the allegation pointed outwards, Horsfield Menzies built three shiny categories and a sales page. When the allegation pointed inwards, the record available to me showed no acknowledged triage, no identified investigator, no scope, no findings, no recommendations and no fucking outcome.
Welcome to Category Zero.
Angus Menzies And Simon Horsfield Got The Quiet Version
The complaint did not ask Angus Menzies and Simon Horsfield to accept every allegation on sight. A complaint is not a judgment. It is a warning that something serious has been alleged and somebody with authority now has a decision to make.
The allegations were specific. I said medical information supplied to establish disability had been used beyond that purpose. I said Horsfield Menzies had contacted my GP or medical centre without my consent, investigated appointment availability and then deployed the result against a postponement request.
The complaint also accused Sam Butler of making statements to the Tribunal that I considered misleading. It challenged aggressive costs pressure against an unrepresented disabled claimant. It raised his failure to answer a basic question about the preliminary-hearing bundle while hostile correspondence continued to arrive without difficulty.
Serious allegations? Yes.
Proved merely because I put them in an email? No. That is why grown-ups investigate.
The firm had several respectable options. It could investigate internally, appoint somebody independent, reject the allegations with reasons or explain why it believed no further action was justified. It could also identify safeguards, correct anything it accepted had gone wrong and bring the matter to a close.
Instead, the open record retained by TCAP contains no investigation outcome communicated by Angus Menzies, Simon Horsfield or Horsfield Menzies. Perhaps something happened behind the curtain. Nothing resembling findings, reasons or remedial action came back through it.
That email was the off-ramp. It required no article, individual category or dedicated search result documenting the day a complaint entered a partner’s inbox and apparently emerged with fuck all attached.
Horsfield Menzies had the quiet version of this story. It did not finish the story there.
Three Owners, One Warning And No Fucking Fog
There is no junior-associate mist to hide inside. The complaint went to two men whose names were above the door and a third who shared their ownership and legal power to act.
Companies House identifies Angus Menzies, Simon Horsfield and Daniel Rubin as the three directors and active persons with significant control of Horsfield Menzies Limited. Each owns more than 25 per cent but no more than 50 per cent of the shares and voting rights. Each also has the right to appoint or remove directors.
These were not decorative titles handed out with the Christmas wine.
Angus Menzies And Simon Horsfield Were Not Decorative Partners
Angus Menzies received the complaint. His profile advertises more than 20 years of advising employers on their people strategies. He was not a bewildered passerby who accidentally wandered into somebody else’s case. His address was in the To field of a complaint expressly aimed at all partners.
Simon Horsfield received it. His profile says he helps HR directors and their teams manage legal risk around people issues. The firm’s investigation page also places him in its Workplace Investigations Unit. A disabled litigant put a people issue, a conduct issue and an obvious reputational-risk issue straight into his inbox.
Daniel Rubin received it. His profile advertises strategic employment law, Legal HR, reputation management, regulatory investigations and sensitive disputes. He had already appeared in the litigation correspondence, which was why the complaint questioned whether Butler’s conduct had been endorsed or tolerated at senior level.
On paper, that is a fucking all-star team for recognising legal, people and reputational risk. In practice, the complainant still received no investigation outcome.
That does not prove Angus Menzies or Simon Horsfield personally performed any of Butler’s alleged acts. TCAP does not need to invent hands on keyboards. Their accountability starts somewhere cleaner: both men received the warning, both controlled the firm and neither communicated an investigation outcome to me.
The To field is not a fucking shredder.
A Complaint Is Not A Conviction. It Is A Test
Horsfield Menzies did not have to believe me. Angus Menzies and Simon Horsfield did not have to organise a ceremonial surrender, sack Sam Butler before breakfast or accept my account without examination.
They did need to decide what their firm would do with the notice it had received. That is the real test here.
A serious complaint aimed at a solicitor can be upheld, partly upheld or rejected. It can expose misconduct, misunderstanding or a factual dispute. Any of those outcomes can be explained. A professional firm can show its work without admitting something it does not accept.
Silence is different. Silence tells the complainant nothing about whether anyone checked the allegation, challenged the solicitor, reviewed the correspondence or simply decided the problem was the person raising it.
Perhaps Horsfield Menzies conducted a meticulous internal investigation. Fine. Name the investigator, identify the scope, state the conclusion and explain what action followed. TCAP will publish the answer and update the record.
Until then, the point remains deliberately narrow. I received no investigation outcome. The firm’s later marketing promises paying organisations written findings, clear recommendations and a report checked by a team leader. In my case, three owners could not produce one communicated conclusion.
That is not reassuring professionalism. It is a corporate shrug in a good fucking jacket.
Angus Menzies And Simon Horsfield Were Chased For An Answer
On 24 March 2025, I followed up. The message was almost painfully civil by later TCAP standards.
There was no swearing, no article and no public naming campaign. Angus Menzies and Simon Horsfield were asked for the basic skeleton of a professional response: acknowledge receipt, confirm whether any investigation would happen and provide a date for the outcome.
I also repeated the outstanding request for a first iteration of the preliminary-hearing bundle. Litigation work did not stop merely because the conduct of the lawyers had become part of the dispute.
The partners were given until close of business on 25 March to provide an update. That gave the firm another chance to identify a decision-maker, confirm a review or explain why it believed an investigation was unwarranted.
The retained open complaint chain contains no acknowledgement from Angus Menzies or Simon Horsfield, no named investigator, no scope, no findings and no remedial action. On 25 March, I recorded that there had been no indication of any meaningful investigation. By then, the data and conduct concerns had moved to the Information Commissioner’s Office and Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Those bodies were not the first door. Horsfield Menzies was the first door, and all three owners were standing behind it.
They had the allegations, dates, case number, requested remedies and follow-up. An unrepresented disabled man had also told them that the firm’s tactics were causing harm.
Notice was abundant. A fucking outcome was not.
Then Horsfield Menzies Put The Missing Process On Sale
Fast-forward to July 2026. Horsfield Menzies launched its Workplace Investigations Unit and produced a lovely little checklist for auditing its own performance.
The public pitch says independent investigators can ensure impartiality, handle personal matters sensitively and deliver a fair, robust process. It promises a transparent instruction process, experienced specialists and more than 40 investigators. The firm says each matter is triaged by complexity and sensitivity before an investigator is selected.
Then comes the menu.
The first tier covers basic disciplinary or grievance investigations. More complex complaints involving discrimination or whistleblowing move into Category 2. Suspected criminality, serious reputational risk and sensitive allegations involving senior management belong in Category 3.
After triage, the advertised process includes an agreed scope, meeting notes, documentary review, witness interviews and an investigation report. The report comes with clear recommendations and team-leader quality assurance. The sales page even insists that its investigators are not “tame” operators who bend findings around a client’s preferred answer.
Good. I genuinely endorse the fucking sermon.
The Horsfield Menzies Category Menu Meets The Sam Butler Complaint
My March 2025 complaint alleged disability-linked pressure, misuse of sensitive medical information, potential regulatory breaches and senior-level awareness. Against the firm’s own descriptions, those issues could comfortably make Category 2, Category 3 or both.
However, the allegation came from an opposing disabled litigant and pointed towards Horsfield Menzies itself. In my experience, that triggered the category omitted from the brochure.
Category Zero.
No agreed scope. No identified investigator. Nobody interviewed me, issued findings or communicated recommendations. An outcome report and visible quality assurance were equally absent. It is a wonderfully efficient product because the principal deliverable is fuck all.
To head off the inevitable lawyerly jazz hands, I am not claiming Horsfield Menzies contractually owed me the commercial investigation package it sells employers. That would miss the point with almost professional determination.
The contradiction is moral and reputational. The firm now preaches that serious complaints need impartiality, sensitivity, triage, evidence and findings. When a serious complaint named its own solicitor and landed with its three owners, none of that process was communicated to the complainant.
Horsfield Menzies wrote the checklist. TCAP merely held it beside the file.
How Category Zero Works At Horsfield Menzies
Category Zero has no webpage, pricing band or team photograph. It requires no investigator and produces no awkward report. Nobody needs to interview the complainant, test the evidence or explain why the allegation failed.
In my case, the owners had the email while I was left outside to guess whether the complaint had been investigated, rejected, buried or ignored. Each possibility creates a different problem, so the firm communicated none of them.
If an investigation happened, Horsfield Menzies withheld its outcome from the complainant. A dismissal of the allegations came without reasons. If nothing happened, three senior employment lawyers watched a conduct complaint land and treated professional curiosity as an optional extra.
None looks remotely like the transparent, sensitive and fact-based process now being sold to employers.
When an invoice points outwards, Horsfield Menzies can offer scope, interviews, findings, recommendations and quality control. When the allegation points inwards, Category Zero appears to eat the paperwork and burp out a risk label for the complainant.
It is a beautiful little machine. The complaint goes in. Accountability does not come out.
The People Focused Law Firm Found The Paying Person
Horsfield Menzies calls itself “The People Focused Law Firm”. Its website talks about values, culture, fairness, sensitivity and processes capable of surviving Tribunal scrutiny.
The slogan meets this file and immediately raises a vulgar question: which people?
Values are easy when the complaint belongs to somebody else’s workplace. The real test arrives when the allegation names your colleague, your litigation tactics and the senior people who received the warning.
The March 2025 complaint delivered exactly that test. A disabled litigant in person alleged that a solicitor had helped turn medical vulnerability into litigation leverage. The allegation involved a corporate client, a live disability-discrimination case and conduct already visible in senior correspondence.
Angus Menzies and Simon Horsfield had the chance to put the slogan to work. Daniel Rubin had the same chance. The corporate relationship continued, Butler remained in the file and the complainant was left to escalate outside the firm without an internal outcome in his hands.
Perhaps action occurred invisibly. That word “invisibly” is doing enough unpaid labour to qualify for its own pension.
People focus that only becomes visible when the person arrives attached to an invoice is not a value. It is market segmentation with a friendly fucking typeface.
The firm’s complaints policy says concerns about solicitor behaviour can be raised with the SRA. Its examples include dishonesty and unfair treatment linked to disability. That is where I went after the internal route produced no meaningful outcome.
You do not get to point outside, watch somebody follow the sign and then act surprised that the shit left the building.
The Medical File Was Not Office Confetti
The complaint concerned disability-related medical material. That detail matters because this was not an argument about somebody misplacing a lunch receipt.
My position was that the information had been supplied to establish disability, not to help opposing solicitors speculate about when medical appointments were booked. I also challenged the firm’s admitted contact with my GP or medical centre and the use of appointment information against my postponement request.
Horsfield Menzies maintained that no private information had been disclosed during the contact. The complaint said that did not answer the purpose, consent and fairness issues. Contact can be disputed even when the receptionist does not hand over the entire fucking medical file.
The allegations therefore required examination, not a shrug. They engaged medical privacy, disability, litigation conduct and the treatment of an unrepresented person already telling the firm he was struggling.
Sam Butler did not need to be condemned merely because those allegations existed. Horsfield Menzies did need to show that somebody with independence and authority had dealt with them if it wanted the complainant to believe the matter was closed.
No such outcome reached me. Sixteen months later, the firm began advertising its sensitivity to paying employers.
That is not irony. Irony has better timing and occasionally the decency to apologise.
TCAP Was Not The First Move
This article matters because Horsfield Menzies and Cepac later helped build a narrative around my persistence, complaints, public criticism and alleged unreasonable conduct. The volume of my reaction became more useful than the events that caused it.
The March 2025 emails put a steel bar through that convenient little story.
Before Sam Butler became a permanent TCAP category, I asked all three controlling shareholders to deal with the complaint privately. Before Angus Menzies and Simon Horsfield acquired dedicated search pages, their names sat in the To field of a calm internal warning. Long before the regulator files, articles and open contempt, there was an email called “Urgent Compliance Concern” addressed to all partners.
Nobody was ambushed or forced to learn the allegations from Google. The firm had a private opportunity to prevent the reputational aftermath.
Google was not the first messenger. I did the quaint thing and fucking emailed them.
Horsfield Menzies had names, dates, allegations, requested remedies and a deadline. It had three owners who sell strategic employment judgment for a living. It also had an easy first response available: “We have received this and will tell you what happens next”.
That response never came from Angus Menzies or Simon Horsfield. No investigation outcome came from the firm.
The complaint did not disappear. It learned WordPress.
Angus Menzies And Simon Horsfield Earned Their Place In The Search Record
Angus Menzies and Simon Horsfield were not the solicitors signing every hostile email in the Cepac litigation. That is not the allegation, and it does not need to be.
The point is narrower, cleaner and harder to wriggle away from. They led and controlled the firm, received the warning and were asked for an investigation and a response. No investigation outcome was communicated to me, and the conduct dispute continued.
That is enough to place both names in the accountability record.
If Angus Menzies investigated, he can say so. If Simon Horsfield appointed somebody independent, he can identify the process. Any challenge to the conduct, corrective action or instruction that Butler change course can be supported with evidence, and TCAP will publish it.
Should their position be that the complaint was bollocks, they can provide the analysis that took them there. A rejection with reasons is still an outcome. An empty space is not.
Silence does not become professional merely because it comes from a boutique employment firm. Nor does leadership evaporate when somebody sends the visible partners an ugly file.
The names above the door are useful when selling judgment, experience and people strategy. They remain the names above the door when the shit arrives addressed to them.
Dear visible partners, you were not forgotten.
The Horsfield Menzies Sam Butler Complaint: A Free Category Zero Case Study
Before Horsfield Menzies sells another employer a robust investigation, it can answer one small case-study question from inside its own building.
What did the firm do when a disabled litigant in person complained that Sam Butler had used aggressive costs pressure, disability-related medical information and contact with his GP or medical centre as part of litigation conduct?
The complaint went to Angus Menzies, Simon Horsfield and Daniel Rubin. The follow-up asked whether an investigation was happening. No investigation outcome reached the complainant.
Sixteen months later, Horsfield Menzies advertised impartiality, sensitivity, triage, interviews, findings, recommendations and quality assurance to paying organisations. It now sells the exact anatomy of the process missing from the record available to me.
The firm can still answer. It can identify the investigator, scope, evidence, conclusion and action. TCAP will publish a substantive response because accountability should include the right to reply, even when the original complaint apparently did not include the right to a fucking outcome.
Until then, Category Zero remains the cleanest description.
It is what happens when the complaint names Horsfield Menzies, the three owners receive it, no investigation outcome reaches the complainant and the missing process later reappears as expertise for sale.
Fine.
TCAP has supplied the case study for free.
They had the quiet lane. They left it open long enough for the complaint to walk out, find a domain name and start ranking.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Horsfield Menzies, Workplace Investigations Unit
- Horsfield Menzies, HR Investigations
- Horsfield Menzies, Complaints Policy
- Horsfield Menzies, Angus Menzies profile
- Horsfield Menzies, Simon Horsfield profile
- Horsfield Menzies, Daniel Rubin profile
- Companies House, Horsfield Menzies Limited officers
- Companies House, Horsfield Menzies Limited persons with significant control
- TCAP, Daniel Rubin and Sam Butler: Legal Muscle for Yemen’s Corporate Dynasty
- TCAP, Brochure Sam vs File Sam
- Email dated 23 March 2025, “Urgent Compliance Concern: Misconduct & Data Misuse (Case 6019060/2024)”, retained by TCAP because it contains personal, medical and tribunal information.
- Follow-up email dated 24 March 2025, retained by TCAP because it contains personal, medical and tribunal information.
- Correspondence dated 25 March 2025 recording that no meaningful investigation had been indicated, retained by TCAP because it contains personal, medical and tribunal information.