A new starter at Avon and Somerset Police wrote “noise cancelling headphones please” on her onboarding form. She never got them. A few weeks later, after she disclosed that her ADHD had been diagnosed through a private online provider, her manager questioned whether the diagnosis was valid and suggested she was being exploited. In Vale v Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary, an employment tribunal found that this amounted to disability harassment, even though the manager meant well. It is a sharp lesson for any employer unsure how to respond to a private ADHD diagnosis.
What happened
Donna Vale joined the force in September 2023 as a Victim and Witness Care Officer on a fixed-term contract running to May 2024. She had been diagnosed with ADHD by ADHD360, a private provider, which also supplied her medication. She asked for noise-cancelling headphones when she collected her equipment and raised it with her manager in her first days. The tribunal found the request “fell between the cracks”. The headphones never arrived and occupational health was never involved.
In November 2023, her manager discussed the private diagnosis with her. After that conversation, the manager and a more senior colleague agreed to “continue as normal” because, in their view, there was no proper or official diagnosis. In practice, that meant no occupational health referral and no plan. A few days later, in a Teams meeting, the manager’s own note recorded concern that Ms Vale was telling people she had ADHD on the strength of an hour-long online consultation, and that she was “being exploited”. Ms Vale went off sick at the end of November and did not return before her contract ended.
What the tribunal decided
The case was heard at Bristol by Employment Judge Beever in January 2026. The force accepted that Ms Vale was disabled by reason of ADHD and that it knew about it.
Two claims succeeded. The first was harassment related to disability. The tribunal found the manager had questioned the validity of the diagnosis and stated, or at least implied, that the provider was exploiting Ms Vale, which undermined both her diagnosis and her medication. It accepted that the manager was not acting out of animosity and saw herself as fulfilling a duty of care. But harassment can be established by the effect of conduct, not only its purpose. The judge described the question as “finely balanced” and noted that the force had never sought its own occupational health view to set against its doubts. On balance, the effect was harassment.
The second was failure to make reasonable adjustments. The headphones would have reduced a substantial disadvantage, and the force did not provide them. Ms Vale had her own noise-cancelling headphones at home and had not brought them in, which the judge called potentially “unfortunate”, but he was clear that the duty to make adjustments sits with the employer, not the employee.
Several other claims failed. The tribunal found the contract ended because it was fixed-term, not because of her disability, so the direct discrimination and discrimination arising from disability claims about her dismissal were dismissed. A confidentiality complaint linked to workplace rumours also failed, as did several further harassment allegations; the tribunal found the manager had been supportive in other exchanges. At a remedy hearing in June 2026 she was awarded just over £19,100, mostly for injury to feelings, including a 10 per cent Acas uplift. The full written reasons are worth reading for anyone who handles disclosures.
Why a private ADHD diagnosis is not your call to judge
Concerns about private ADHD clinics have had a lot of media coverage, and the tribunal noted that Ms Vale herself had raised a BBC Panorama programme on the subject. It is understandable that a manager might feel uneasy. But a line manager is not a clinician, and the workplace is not the place to audit someone’s medical history.
The legal test for disability does not turn on who made a diagnosis, or whether there is one at all. It turns on the effect of an impairment on day-to-day life. If an employer has real doubts, the right response is to get independent advice, usually through occupational health, and to focus on what the person needs at work. Deciding to “continue as normal” leaves the employee unsupported and the employer exposed, and as this case shows, voicing doubts directly to the employee can cross the line into harassment.
Good intentions are not a defence
Perhaps the most useful thing about this judgment is how fair it is to the manager. The tribunal accepted she was trying to help. It rejected an allegation that she had said “you’re not special”. It found she acted appropriately in other meetings. And still, the way she talked about the diagnosis was found to be harassment.
That is a reminder that what matters is how a comment lands on someone, judged reasonably, not what the speaker intended. Many managers feel they are being caring when they question a diagnosis or medication. Training needs to give them better words and a clear process, so that care does not come out as scepticism.
Small adjustments, big consequences
A pair of noise-cancelling headphones is one of the cheapest and simplest adjustments an employer can make. Here it was written on an onboarding form, mentioned to a manager, and still lost. No one refused it. It just fell through the gap between a form, a manager and HR. That is a process failure, and it is common. If your adjustments rely on someone remembering to chase them, some will slip.
What to do next
Start by mapping what happens to an adjustment request from the moment it is made. Who owns it, where is it recorded, and when is it checked? Give requests made on onboarding forms a named owner and a deadline, and make sure low-cost items like headphones, screen filters or a quieter desk can be approved quickly without a diagnosis or a long process.
Then write a short, plain guide for managers on what to do when someone discloses a condition, including one diagnosed privately. It should tell them to listen, ask what helps, agree simple steps, and refer to occupational health where they need advice. It should also tell them what not to do: question the source of a diagnosis, comment on medication, or put adjustments on hold until a diagnosis is “official”.
Finally, train managers in how disclosure conversations feel from the other side. Employees who disclose and are met with doubt tend to stop disclosing, and then you lose the chance to help them do their best work.
Cases like this are decided by line managers, often in a single conversation. Our manager training gives them the words and the process to handle disclosure well, and to keep adjustments from falling through the cracks. Book a call to get dates in the diary for early 2027.
