Graham blows £0.5m of members’ cash in Beckett legal fight and fails

Unite’s former legal director, Howard Beckett, will have his claims heard at a full hearing after securing an employment appeals tribunal win.

Beckett is suing Unite the Union — and current general secretary, Sharon Graham, personally — for breaching his privacy. 

Yet again Graham’s attempts to have the case thrown out have failed, at a huge cost, as the employment appeals tribunal (EAT) has given permission for all 11 grounds to proceed to hearing.

Skwawkbox has previously covered Unite’s attempts to use a technicality against the union’s ex-general secretary candidate.

Unite, Howard Beckett and the media pipeline

Apart from Skwawkbox and legal outlets, Beckett’s successes remain unreported — but that isn’t the case with his one failure.

To the surprise of Beckett’s team and independent observers, his claims for constructive dismissal and victimisation “for Trade Union reasons” — that Graham was targeting Beckett because she perceived him as a threat — were unsuccessful. The employment tribunal (ET) judgment was reported by the BBC in October 2024.

Unite then took the extraordinary step of placing a link on its website so any member could read the judgement. Graham even emailed members with it. Unite and the BBC vilified Beckett.

Fast forward 20 months, Beckett appealed to the EAT on 11 grounds. Graham’s lawyers fought hard to have his grounds for appeal struck out, but they failed.

Union legal drama

That on its own would be dramatic in legal terms. But three of the 11 grounds were admitted to a full hearing on a ‘paper application’ alone — by the vice president of the EAT – before the remaining eight proceeded after a hearing contested by Unite.

As well as Beckett’s legal team succeeding in achieving an appeal for all of its grounds, Skwawkbox understands that the majority of the grounds claim the original ET judgement is perverse.

An appeal on grounds of perversity must meet an even higher threshold than usual to be allowed to proceed — far higher than the original grounds of constructive dismissal and victimisation.

As well as perversity, Beckett’s grounds for appeal include accusing Unite of:

• Constructive dismissal
• Unjustified discipline – As a member of Unite, the union refused Beckett legal assistance
• Victimisation – That Unite’s mistreatment of Graham was at the instigation of Sharon Graham’s direction because Beckett was a perceived threat).

Murky conduit in Sky News journalist

But the legal situation looks very murky for Graham. Beckett started separate proceedings in the Media and Communications division of London’s Royal Courts of Justice almost two years ago. He accused Unite, and Sharon Graham, of leaking his private information to journalist Joe Pike.

At the time, Pike, who now works at the BBC, was reporting for Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News. Beckett has accused Unite and Graham of leaking his suspension letter to Pike.

Until Graham’s election, Pike can safely be argued to have been an antagonist of Unite. Unsurprisingly for a reporter working for union-buster Murdoch, Pike’s reports repeatedly displayed negativity toward previous general secretary, Len McCluskey, and also to Jeremy Corbyn.

Pike was also said to be close to the Labour right in Falkirk, where Beckett had led rebuttals of attempts by Ed Miliband’s Labour to criminalise Unite. Beckett claimed Unite had recruited members to try to secure the Falkirk seat for Corbyn’s future chief of staff, Karie Murphy.

Beckett may allege that Unite used Pike as a media conduit to destroy his reputation as part of a campaign against him, and that Graham was responsible for this.

Corroboration and non-denial

Beckett’s claim that a union general secretary used the Murdoch press to destroy an employee’s reputation will only astonish those who are naïve about the machinations of union leaders. But he’s not the only one to make that claim of Unite, Sharon Graham and Joe Pike.

In August 2025, after years of hostile press briefings and other smears against him, former Unite general secretary McCluskey said the same. He accused Graham’s Unite press office of maintaining a constant feed of negative briefings to Pike.

In his rebuttal of Graham’s “smears and innuendo”, McCluskey wrote:

The media of course lapped up the attacks, with Joe Pike (once an employee of Rupert Murdoch now an employee of the BBC) being fed information and emails for nearly four years by [the] Unite Comms Department.

Graham has previously not been shy about firing more smears against those who expose or accuse her, including Skwawkbox. But 18 months after Graham filed his allegations, neither Unite nor Graham have even filed defences denying the accusations. Instead, both undertook what lawyers term “satellite litigation”.

Similar to the political and legal defence strategy of ‘delay, deny, deflect‘, satellite litigation is intended to delay process, delay filing defences and delay having to answer the allegations.

Half a million quid wasted at Unite

Graham and her lawyers have managed to eat up 18 months of litigation time. In doing so, they have cost Unite members hundreds of thousands of pounds. All, many will say, to protect herself and her husband, Jack Clarke, for whom Unite already destroyed evidence of severe misogyny and bullying.

First, Unite and Graham argued that the original ‘claim form’ from Beckett alleged defamation rather than breach of privacy. Therefore, it needed to be ‘resealed’ by the court before being served, (even if sealing and service were minutes apart). If Unite and Graham won, Beckett could simply reissue, but it would have eaten up time.

Unite and Graham lost. They then appealed and lost again.

Secondly, 18 months after Beckett had issued the claims, Unite and Graham argued Beckett should be ‘estopped’ from taking his claim because the allegations they had leaked information should be restricted to the employment appeals tribunal only. Beckett, they argued, can’t get a separate hearing for the leak to Pike as it’s part of his allegations in the EAT.

If it walks and quacks like a trade union trying to restrict access to justice etc etc.

Unite and Graham claimed the employment tribunal judgement did not say Unite leaked to Pike. Perhaps she wants the EAT to believe Beckett leaked to Pike against himself.

However, the ET judgement did say it. To be precise, it said there were “substantial grounds” to say Unite leaked “whether inadvertently or not”.

Unite and Sharon Graham again lost that one too. They lost this week.

Information seen by Skwawkbox indicates the total cost of all this ‘satellite litigation’ has been almost half a million pounds of Unite members’ money.

Cue the statement of truth

Skwawkbox readers might expect a union general secretary to be able to deny such rancid behaviour and to do so publicly and immediately. Instead, Sharon Graham’s very expensive lawyers have used every procedural challenge possible to avoid even filing a defence.

A defence that will have to come with a sworn ‘Statement of Truth’. Penalties for false statements include up to two years in prison, unlimited fines, or both. If the deception is judged to involve financial fraud, it can lead to prosecution under the Fraud Act, carrying up to 10 years in prison.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of Beckett’s legal action, and there is clearly much to play for, it appears undeniable that Unite’s tactics are to deny Beckett legal cover as a union member, and then have him face enormous legal costs if he loses. It makes the stakes so high that he would be foolish to continue.

Many believe crushing costs are the worst aspect of legal proceedings. It’s exactly why legal support is given to union members so that employers can’t use finance to bully employees.

Yet, Beckett refuses to be deterred. A source close to Beckett told Skwawkbox:

Sharon Graham is mistaken if she believes she will bully Beckett by making the litigation so financially severe that to lose would destroy him. That’s not how he’s built. He is never backing down. For him his reputation is at stake and regardless of the risk, he just will never back down. It’s not about money.

Let’s face it, destroying the past has been Graham’s mantra. Regardless of truth nor the betterment of the union. Beckett’s reputation was never going to be allowed to get in the way. But for Beckett it’s just another challenge.

Success for him was part of achieving change, whether that was personal success or success for Unite. He sees Graham as a status quo figure. Graham will have to beat him down to win and that’s not going to happen by trying to avoid court. This is a war to the end, someone will lose everything.

‘This is an outrage’

A member of Unite’s executive council (EC) added:

This is an outrage. The EC know nothing of this. Not the facts, nor the costs.

It hasn’t been reported to us by [legal director] Pinder, nor by Graham herself. Unite member funds are being used for battles that should be personal to Graham.

A prominent activist, who supports Simon Dubbins to be Unite’s next general secretary, said:

On what planet does a trade union General Secretary use the Murdoch press to destroy the reputation of an employee, a colleague and a rival. Simon has the scars of fighting Murdoch at Wapping.

If Graham leaked to Pike to undermine the rights of an employee, then it is just disgusting.

So far, Unite has reportedly spent more than £450,000 trying to avoid answering the allegations raised by Beckett, on its own and Graham’s behalf. However, by 30 July, they must answer the allegations with an accompanying ‘statement of truth’.

A second EC member said that the union has failed its obligations as an employer regardless of the case’s outcome:

This battle between Beckett and Graham doesn’t seem to have reached half time. But whatever the outcome, whoever is right, there are standards for employee relations that Unite have just failed on. It is really shocking.

The highly regarded Birkenhead law firm, Havard Law, known for its community work, is representing Beckett.

Unite and Sharon Graham must file their formal defence as to whether they leaked to Pike later this month. The EAT hearing is expected to take place in 2027.

Featured image via Yui Mok/ PA