Mr K C’tunge v Holding Creatives Limited t/a Peter Mikic Interiors — 2024

At a remote public preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Khan sitting alone, the claimant did not attend. The tribunal proceeded under rule 47 and considered the respondent's strike-out and alternative deposit-order application on the papers. It set out the rule 37 and rule 39 tests, including the authorities on strike-out in discrimination cases, and approached the question as whether the allegations were plainly without merit rather than merely poorly pleaded.

The tribunal dismissed allegation 3.1.1 under rule 38 and, in the alternative, said it was inherently implausible that all colleagues called the claimant "paedo" every day for five months; the audio excerpts were inaudible and did not match the transcript. It struck out A14, C2, C3, D6, and the mixed B3/D2 and B4/D3 allegations. Those allegations included supposed comments about Buddhism, Italians, Australians, an alleged attempt to entrap the claimant into homophobic remarks, a social event involving heterosexual men discussing other women, and comments about prostitutes and internet history said to imply he was a "dirty old man".

The victimisation complaint was also struck out because the statements relied on were not protected acts under the Equality Act 2010. The tribunal did not strike out the race-related allegation in 3.1.2 that Kam Islam had insinuated the claimant hated Tamils because he was Sri Lankan Sinhalese, and it could not assess C1 further because the allegation was not sufficiently particularised. It rejected further particulars as an alternative because the claimant had already had two case management hearings and the issue was not uncertainty but a misconceived basis for the claims. No monetary award was made.