In Person Supported by his father, Mr A Turkmani For the v Respondent — 2019

The tribunal held an open preliminary hearing to decide whether Mr Turkmani was a disabled person for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 between 22 March 2018 and 15 June 2018. It accepted that he had a mental impairment, but the central question was whether the condition had a substantial adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities and whether that effect was long-term or likely to recur.

The tribunal reviewed GP records, the fit note of 27 April 2018, Dr Khan's report of 14 May 2018, and the later psychiatrist's report obtained in October 2019. It found that the contemporaneous medical evidence did not support the claimant's account that he had suffered the relevant condition since childhood or that it had caused a substantial continuing effect during the relevant period. It noted periods in which he had commuted to London and worked in central London without recorded difficulty, and it found that the documentary record showed only limited and intermittent references to travel anxiety.

The tribunal also rejected the claimant's case on recurrence. It found the evidence did not establish a single condition producing recurrent symptoms with the necessary legal effect, and it considered the 2011 and 2014 references insufficient to link the earlier and later episodes. It treated the later 2019 talking-therapies material as too remote to be material to the disability question for 2018.

As a result, the tribunal found that Mr Turkmani had not discharged the burden of proving that he was a disabled person at the material time. The claim was struck out forthwith because, on that finding, he was not entitled to bring a complaint of disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. The tribunal did not go on to any remedy stage.