Case 1302971/2021 · Employment Tribunal

In Person v Respondent — 2023

Case reference: 1302971/2021
Decision date: 30 June 2023
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge Wedderspoon Representation
Venue: Birmingham via CVP
Panel members: Mr. Palmer, Miss. Pelter

Indexed: 21 May 2026

Parties

1 named

Claimant

In Person

Respondent

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

The claimant, an IT support technician employed from 11 September 2017 until dismissal on 31 March 2021 for misconduct, presented claims including unfair dismissal, direct discrimination, harassment and victimisation. The tribunal refused his application to amend the case to add direct sexual orientation discrimination and sexual orientation harassment, and it also refused the application to strike out the respondent's ET3. It held that the indirect discrimination complaint had not been particularised and was not before it, but it allowed the pleaded victimisation complaint to proceed on the protected act said to have occurred at a February 2020 meeting.

The tribunal found that the claimant had conducted the proceedings unreasonably, scandalously and vexatiously. It relied on direct emails to witnesses and the respondent's legal team containing threats to sue individuals for £10,000 and abusive language, together with social media posts that referred to witnesses and lawyers in derogatory terms and, during the hearing, postings discussing evidence after he had been warned not to do so. The tribunal treated that conduct as closely connected to the proceedings and applied rule 37(1)(b) of the Employment Tribunal Rules 2013, referring in particular to authorities including Bolch v Chipman, Abergaze v Shrewsbury College of Arts & Technology, Bennett v Southwark LBC, Force One Utilities Ltd v Hatfield, Chidzoy v BBC and the Selkent and Chaudhry principles on amendment.

The tribunal initially considered that a fair trial might still be possible if the parties complied with ground rules requiring courtesy, respect and no discussion of evidence, and it made repeated warnings to the claimant during the hearing. By day 5, after further breaches and continuing abusive conduct in the hearing and online, it concluded that a fair hearing was no longer possible and that no lesser sanction would suffice. It therefore struck out the claimant's entire claim on 30 June 2023. No merits findings were made on unfair dismissal, discrimination, harassment or victimisation, and no remedy was awarded.

Claims and outcomes

6 findings recorded

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Sex discrimination	Direct discrimination claim struck out with the rest of the case before any merits determination; the tribunal did not decide whether the treatment was because of sex.	Struck out	Sex	—
Harassment	Harassment complaint was pleaded as related to race, religion or belief, and sex; it was struck out before any merits findings were made.	Struck out	—	—
Victimisation	The tribunal allowed the pleaded victimisation issue to proceed on the protected act alleged in February 2020, but the whole claim was later struck out before a merits decision.	Struck out	—	—
Unfair dismissal	Struck out on 30 June 2023 under rule 37(1)(b) for the claimant's conduct of the proceedings; the tribunal made no merits finding on dismissal.	Struck out	—	—
Race discrimination	Direct discrimination claim struck out with the rest of the case before any merits determination; the tribunal did not decide whether the treatment was because of race.	Struck out	Race	—
Religion or belief discrimination	Direct discrimination claim struck out with the rest of the case before any merits determination; the tribunal did not decide whether the treatment was because of religion or belief.

Legal tests applied

13 references

Official outcome judgment PDF

Gov.uk primary record

The official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.

Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

How we got this data

Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.

Named in this case and want it removed? Submit a takedown request. The page will be withdrawn on receipt and the editor will follow up within five working days.