Case 2210796/2023 · Employment Tribunal
In person For the v F J M Holdridge and 1 other — 2025
- Case reference
- 2210796/2023
- Decision date
- 18 September 2025
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Brown Appearances
- Venue
- London Central
Parties
3 namedClaimant
In person For the
Respondents
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe public preliminary hearing was listed to determine issues of state and diplomatic immunity. The Tribunal did not determine state immunity issues for the Embassy because the Embassy had not been sent notice of the hearing. It proceeded only on the issue of diplomatic immunity for the individual First Respondent.
The Claimant had brought complaints of age and sex discrimination and a complaint about holiday against the First Respondent, who was described as consul and counsellor at the Embassy. The Tribunal found that the alleged acts all took place during and only in the context of the Claimant's employment at the Embassy, while the First Respondent was a serving diplomat at the relevant times.
Applying Art 39(2) VCDR and the approach in Reyes v Al-Malki, the Tribunal decided that the alleged acts were performed by the First Respondent in the exercise of his functions as a member of the mission. It found that he retained residual immunity against civil claims in respect of the alleged unlawful acts, and struck out the claim against him individually.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age discrimination | Struck out only against the individual First Respondent on the basis of residual diplomatic immunity under Art 39(2) VCDR. The judgment did not determine state immunity issues concerning the Embassy. | Struck out | Age | — |
| Sex discrimination | Struck out only against the individual First Respondent on the basis of residual diplomatic immunity under Art 39(2) VCDR. The judgment did not determine state immunity issues concerning the Embassy. | Struck out | Sex | — |
| Other | The judgment describes this as a complaint about holiday, including alleged attempts to change holiday authorisation dates. The precise statutory classification is unclear from the extracted text. It was struck out only against the individual First Respondent on the basis of residual diplomatic immunity. | Struck out | — | — |
Legal tests applied
2 references- Art 39(2) Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
- Reyes v Al-Malki and another [2017] UKSC 61
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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