Lidl Manager Wins Over £45,000 After Tribunal Finds ADHD Wasn't Properly Considered in His Firing

Ryan Toghill spent 18 months fighting his former employer, Lidl, after getting fired for gross misconduct. He won.

Toghill, a deputy store manager, had disclosed his ADHD diagnosis to his bosses. He was later called into a disciplinary meeting for using equipment he hadn't been trained on, a violation of company rules. Lidl fired him.

He appealed. Lidl offered him a lower-paid job instead. He turned it down and took the case to an employment tribunal.

The tribunal awarded him more than £45,000, according to the BBC. Judges found that Lidl hadn't fully accounted for his ADHD diagnosis during the disciplinary process and failed to offer reasonable adjustments, like additional breaks.

One detail from the case stands out. A manager had described Toghill as showing "a lack of remorse" during the disciplinary process. The tribunal found that assessment was directly tied to how his ADHD affects communication, not any actual absence of remorse.

"I don't show a lot of emotions," Toghill told the BBC. "I could be incredibly happy, angry, upset, or remorseful, and my facial expressions and tone of voice would essentially remain the same."

The tribunal upheld parts of his claims for unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal, and failure to make reasonable adjustments.

Lidl responded that it's "committed to ensuring that everyone receives the reasonable adjustments, clear communication and support they need to thrive," according to the BBC. The company didn't dispute the tribunal's findings in that statement.

Why This Keeps Happening

This isn't an isolated case. ADHD and autism diagnoses have climbed sharply in the UK since the pandemic, and these conditions are showing up more often in employment disputes, according to the BBC, which cited campaigners, employment lawyers and HR professionals.

The legal mechanism here is the Equality Act 2010. It can classify neurodivergent conditions as disabilities if they have a "substantial and long-term adverse effect" on someone's ability to do normal day-to-day activities, whether or not the person has a formal diagnosis. That's a broad standard, and it applies well beyond specific work tasks.

The BBC also referenced a separate 2025 tribunal in which a software engineer with ADHD won a discrimination claim after a manager reportedly sighed and displayed other "non-verbal frustration" toward him.

The Legitimate Tension Here

There's a real management problem buried in this story. Employers have to enforce safety rules, like not letting untrained staff operate equipment, and they have to be able to discipline employees for genuine misconduct. A grocery chain that lets any employee touch machinery without proper training is asking for a workplace accident and a much bigger lawsuit.

The tribunal didn't rule that Toghill's underlying rule violation was fabricated or that discipline itself was inappropriate. It ruled that the process by which Lidl handled the disciplinary meeting and dismissal failed to account for a diagnosed condition the company already knew about, and failed to offer the kind of accommodation, like additional breaks, that might reasonably have changed the outcome.

That's a narrower and more defensible finding than a claim that the company can never discipline a neurodivergent employee. It concerns process, documentation and training of managers, not immunity from consequences.

For businesses, the practical takeaway is uncomfortable but clear. If an employee has disclosed a condition like ADHD, and that condition affects how they communicate or present emotion, managers making judgment calls about "remorse" or attitude during a disciplinary hearing are on shaky legal ground unless they've documented that they considered the diagnosis and offered accommodations.

What's Unresolved

The BBC's reporting doesn't specify what training, if any, Lidl's managers received on handling employees with disclosed neurodivergent conditions, or whether the company has since changed its disciplinary procedures nationwide. It also doesn't say whether Lidl plans to appeal the tribunal's decision.

Given the rise in diagnoses and the growing number of similar cases moving through UK tribunals, employment lawyers cited by the BBC expect this to keep being a live issue for HR departments, not a one-off. The open question for businesses is whether they update disciplinary procedures proactively or wait to get sued into it, case by case.