Mr K Khan v Cabinet Office — 2022

The preliminary hearing considered the respondent's application for strike out or deposit orders, and the claimant's amendment applications. The claimant's claims were direct race discrimination and victimisation arising from reports made about him during his employment, an internal briefing note, later correspondence to the respondent's Public Correspondence Team, and the respondent's handling of a USB stick.

The tribunal held that several allegations about the September 2019 report, the November 2019 report, and the internal briefing note had already received judicial consideration in the claimant's earlier tribunal claim, or could and should have been brought in those earlier proceedings. It applied issue estoppel and the rule in Henderson v Henderson, and also found no reasonable prospects of a tribunal finding the report-related race discrimination allegations had been brought in time or that time should be extended.

For the victimisation allegations based on the March 2021 complaint, the tribunal found that most of them repackaged the same concerns about the earlier reports and should not be allowed to proceed. For the USB stick allegations, the earlier tribunal had found that the respondent's conduct concerning the USB stick had nothing to do with race or protected acts; Employment Judge Burns treated the new USB allegations as covered by issue estoppel. All claims were struck out, and no remedy was awarded.