‘Whistleblowing’ claims, or to give them their technical name, claims for a detriment under section 47B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 following the making of a protected disclosure, are more common than you might think.
In the mainstream media, as with most things legal, the act of ‘blowing the whistle’ is somewhat romanticised and to a large degree exalted, and perhaps rightly so. When the term is mentioned in casual conversation, most people’s minds jump to Robert Redford in ‘All the President’s Men’, Al Pacino in ‘Serpico’, or more latterly Edward Snowden. In any event the term elicits an almost instantaneous and uniform reaction that the person blowing the whistle is a crusader, a vigilante of sorts who from in their view is looking out for the interests of others.
Given that this act is more common than the average person would expect, it follows then that there could be a right and wrong way of embarking on a single-minded mission to bring down ‘the powers that be’.
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