Case 1800456/2023 · Employment Tribunal

Kerry-Ann Knight v Ministry of Defence — 2024

Case reference: 1800456/2023
Decision date: 7 February 2024
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge Buckley REPRESENTATION

Indexed: 19 May 2026

Parties

2 named

Claimant

Kerry-Ann Knight

Respondent

Ministry of Defence

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

This was a judgment on a preliminary jurisdiction issue in claims brought by a former member of the armed forces. The tribunal considered section 121 of the Equality Act 2010, which requires a service complaint to have been made about the relevant matter before the employment tribunal can determine a complaint relating to an act done while the complainant was serving as a member of the armed forces.

The tribunal held that the statutory word "matter" is broader than an individual act and may include a connected course of conduct. It found that a service complaint is not a formal pleading and that the claimant did not have to particularise every factual allegation in the service complaint if the allegation formed part of the matter complained about.

Applying that approach, the tribunal found that most disputed allegations formed part of matters already raised through service complaints, including allegations concerning Corporal Coles, Corporal Taylor, Major Heckles, and matters connected with the safeguarding investigation, VRM register and removal order. It held that the allegation concerning Corporal Woodcock at paragraph 106hh did not form part of a service complaint about that matter and struck out that allegation. Jurisdiction over paragraph 106o was left to be determined at the final hearing.

Claims and outcomes

3 findings recorded

This case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Other	Preliminary issue only: the tribunal held it had jurisdiction to consider allegations of detrimental treatment at paragraphs 106h, 106i, 106y, 106aa, 106bb, 106ii, 106eee, 106fff, 106ggg and 106jjj. Merits were not determined.	Other	—	—
Other	The allegation at paragraph 106hh was struck out because the tribunal held it did not have jurisdiction; the claimant had not made a service complaint about that matter.	Struck out	—	—
Other	The question of whether the tribunal had jurisdiction over the allegation at paragraph 106o was reserved to the final hearing.	Other	—	—

Legal tests applied

6 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.

Open official judgment PDF on gov.uk

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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