Mrs T Kostakopoulou v University of Warwick and 3 others — 2018

This was a public preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Camp dealing with strike out, deposit order and time limit issues in claims brought by Mrs T Kostakopoulou against the University of Warwick and three individual respondents. The claim consisted of Equality Act 2010 victimisation complaints and Employment Rights Act 1996 detriment complaints for making protected disclosures. The tribunal emphasised that it was deciding preliminary issues only, and that the claimant's remaining claim was not an appeal against the final written warning imposed on her in November 2016.

The tribunal struck out all whistleblowing detriment complaints under rule 37. Whistleblowing claims 1 to 5 had no reasonable prospects because of time limits and, in several instances, because the alleged disclosures did not have reasonable prospects of being protected disclosures or of being disclosures the claimant reasonably believed were made in the public interest. For claim 6, the tribunal did not strike out on time limit grounds, but held that the alleged disclosures about information in the claimant's personnel file had no reasonable prospects of satisfying the public interest requirement, even though the claimant had better than little reasonable prospects of showing a reasonable belief that the information tended to show breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998.

The tribunal struck out all victimisation complaints relying on alleged protected acts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9. It held that the claimant had no reasonable prospects of showing those were protected acts under section 27 of the Equality Act 2010, including because some were unsupported by clear particulars or documentary evidence, one email referred only to unspecified equal opportunities concerns, and three emails using the word victimisation used it in a colloquial rather than legal sense.

The only victimisation complaints not struck out were those relying on alleged protected act 6 and alleged protected act 10. For protected act 6, the tribunal found the 19 December 2015 email had reasonable prospects of being treated as containing allegations of direct sex discrimination and probably victimisation. For protected act 10, the respondents withdrew the strike out or deposit application after it was recognised that the claimant alleged protected acts in her appeal document, appeal presentation and what she said during the appeal hearing on 15 February 2017.

The judge also gave a strike out warning, proposing to strike out all claims against the second to fourth respondents and all claims against the University except three protected act 10 victimisation complaints about the period before the appeal hearing, dismissal of the appeal and confirmation of the final written warning, and the alleged unfairness and bias of the appeal hearing. That proposal was not a final strike out decision in this judgment. The claimant's application for an order requiring further and better particulars from the respondents was refused, and no monetary remedy was awarded.