Mr A Rahmat v Hygiene Improvement Solutions Limited — 2024

Mr A Rahmat worked for Hygiene Improvement Solutions Limited as a Hygiene Operative from February 2022 until 22 March 2023, when he was dismissed without notice. He presented an unfair dismissal claim, but the tribunal found that it was not validly presented until 11 October 2023, after earlier attempted presentations on 25 July 2023 and 27 September 2023 had been returned because they were not made by a prescribed method.

The tribunal held that the claim was out of time. It found that the effective date of termination was 22 March 2023, that the normal three-month time limit expired on 2 August 2023 after allowing for early conciliation, and that it was reasonably practicable for the claimant or his adviser to have presented the claim in time. It also found that, even on the claimant's own explanation, the claim was not presented within a further reasonable period because he tried again on 28 September 2023 using a method he had already been told was invalid and only validly presented the claim on 11 October 2023.

The tribunal therefore dismissed the claim as presented out of time. It also recorded that, even if the claim had been allowed to proceed, it would have struck it out because the claimant had less than two years' service and had no reasonable prospect of establishing that the principal reason for his dismissal was a protected disclosure. The tribunal accepted that a complaint to Mr Valaitis on 16 February 2023 about Mr Mehmood asking employees for £20 a week might arguably amount to a protected disclosure, but it did not accept that there was a reasonable prospect of showing that this was the main reason for dismissal rather than the incident on 20 March 2023 when the respondent called the police to remove the claimant from its premises.