Case 1401211/2023 · Employment Tribunal

In person/with Paul Bolzara (colleague) For the v Mr R Hickford of Ashdowns Legal LLP PRELIMINARY HEARING IN PUBLIC — 2023

Case reference: 1401211/2023
Decision date: 17 November 2023
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge H Lumby Dated

Indexed: 23 May 2026

Parties

2 named

Claimant

In person/with Paul Bolzara (colleague) For the

Respondent

Mr R Hickford of Ashdowns Legal LLP PRELIMINARY HEARING IN PUBLIC

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

The claimant, Bernard King, had been employed by the respondent and the relevant events arose in 2018 after an incident involving Mr Luke Mercer, a subsequent complaint to HR, suspension, dismissal on 8 August 2018, and an unsuccessful appeal. The tribunal noted that the claimant is autistic and also has dyslexia and ADHD, and that adjustments were made for the preliminary hearing. This claim was presented on 19 March 2023. The tribunal identified two broad categories of claim: breach of contract and discrimination.

Claims and outcomes

2 findings recorded

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Breach of contract	Dismissed because the tribunal found the claim was not presented within the required time limit and, although it accepted that the claimant's mental condition was the substantial cause of the initial delay, it was not brought within a further reasonable period.	Dismissed	—	—
Sex discrimination	The judgment treated the EqA complaints as sex discrimination complaints and recorded that the pleaded allegations included direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation. They were dismissed as out of time because the tribunal found it was not just and equitable to extend time.	Dismissed	Sex	—

Legal tests applied

8 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.

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