Mr D Shaw v The Intellectual Property Office PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2019

At a preliminary hearing on 21 January 2019 at Reading, Employment Judge S Jenkins sitting alone heard Mr Shaw's applications for specific disclosure, an unless order, strike out of the response, and amendment of the claim form. The judgment dismissed all of those applications. It did not decide the underlying merits of the employment claims.

On disclosure, the tribunal held that the respondent had complied with its general disclosure obligations. It accepted that some documents had been supplied both through the DSAR response and through the tribunal disclosure process, but said that this did not amount to a failure to disclose relevant material. The specific disclosure request for Brian Woods' personal journal was refused because the journal was not held by the respondent, extracts had already been provided, and there was no compelling indication that further disclosure would produce relevant material.

The strike out application also failed. The respondent accepted that it had missed the deadline to provide a draft trial bundle index by 17 July 2018, but it produced the index on 22 August 2018 and the tribunal found no material prejudice and no basis for saying that a fair trial would not be possible. The claimant's reference to Chidzoy v BBC did not alter that conclusion.

The amendment application was refused by reference to the Selkent, Cocking and British Coal authorities on amendment and case management. The tribunal treated the proposed wording about the mid-term review being withheld because the claimant had raised an Equality Act grievance and/or because he had been absent on leave connected with disability as a fresh factual basis, noted that the relevant facts were within the claimant's knowledge from the outset, and recorded that the application came more than 18 months after the original claim without explanation for the delay. It also found that the balance of prejudice favoured the respondent and that the claimant's existing allegation about the July 2016 mid-term review remained available.