Jaguar Land Rover has been accused by one of its former engineers of instructing him not to leave any paper trail of concerns over fire risks in its Range Rover Evoque model.
Hazar Denli made the allegations at an employment tribunal in Birmingham where he is seeking 3.7mn in compensation, alleging that JLR unfairly dismissed and “blacklisted” him for blowing the whistle on safety concerns over electric vehicles he was involved in developing before joining the company.
The former employee claimed he had received an email showing a crash test video of JLR’s Evoque sport utility vehicle in late 2018 that appeared to show “a rear subframe violently protruding into the fuel tank, which was a serious fire risk”, according to a witness statement submitted to the tribunal.
“When I raised a concern about what the video appeared to show verbally to my senior manager at the time, I was instructed not to respond to the email or create any written record,” Denli alleged in a witness statement.
In written arguments, JLR denied Denli’s claims. At a hearing on Tuesday, JLR’s lawyer Charles Crow said the claims about the Evoque represented “a serious allegation” unrelated to the case, and that the carmaker was unable to fully respond to because of the lack of details provided.
Denli’s lawyer Emma Darlow Stearn countered that Denli’s claims about the Evoque illustrated JLR’s culture in handling whistleblowers.
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