Miss A Siddique v Roundhay School HELD by CVP — 2021

At the open preliminary hearing, Employment Judge Speker OBE DL considered whether the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear the claims. Miss Siddique had worked as a SEN teaching assistant and was dismissed for gross misconduct on 13 July 2020 after an incident involving Student A. The claim form was not presented until 21 May 2021, after ACAS early conciliation had begun on 25 March 2021.

The tribunal held that the unfair dismissal claim was out of time under s.111(2) ERA 1996. It found that it was reasonably practicable to present the claim within the three-month period and did not accept the claimant's account that she had been told by ACAS to wait for the outcome of her appeal before starting tribunal proceedings. The tribunal also found that the claimant could have made reasonable enquiries, including through the ACAS website and by speaking to her union, and that her references to illness, long Covid, and starting new employment by the end of March 2021 did not explain the delay.

For the race and religion-or-belief discrimination claims, the tribunal applied the just and equitable extension test under the Equality Act 2010 and refused to extend time. It relied on the length of the delay, the claimant's failure to engage with the grievance investigation, the lack of a persuasive explanation for the period from January to March 2021, and prejudice to the respondent and the wider administration of justice. To the extent the discrimination allegations related to the closure of the grievance on 17 December 2020 and the appeal on 5 January 2021, the tribunal struck those allegations out under Regulation 37 because no basis was advanced to show that they had a reasonable prospect of success.