Miss A Tramowska v Vision Teaching Limited — 2025

At a hearing on 17 January 2025 before Employment Judge Joffe, the respondent applied to strike out the claimant's public interest disclosure and unfair dismissal claims, alternatively seeking deposit orders. The claimant said she had made disclosures in March and May 2023 about safeguarding concerns at Ormiston Beachcroft Academy, and she alleged detriments including a warning that she would not get further work, reduced work, removal from the respondent's books, refusal of further work in February 2024, and refusal to provide a reference.

The tribunal reviewed contemporaneous material including booking records, call transcripts, the 8 December 2023 email in which the claimant said she was taking a break from teaching, the 20 February 2024 call in which Ms Khan said the respondent would stop the claimant's work with Vision Teaching, and statements of service that had been provided to other agencies. It accepted that some allegations turned on conflicts of evidence and would not ordinarily be suitable for strike out at an early stage. It also noted that the claim about refusal to provide a reference did not accurately reflect the documents, because statements of service had been provided, although there were also references to off-the-record negative calls.

The tribunal nevertheless concluded that this was an unusual case in which it could decide prospects on the documents and the claimant's presentation. It found that the claimant's account was intertwined with beliefs about public figures and other matters that the tribunal considered had no prospect of being accepted, and that this affected the assessment of whether she had a reasonable belief that the information disclosed tended to show wrongdoing. For that reason, the tribunal held that she had no reasonable prospect of establishing that she made protected disclosures. It also concluded that there was no reasonable prospect on causation in relation to the alleged detriments based on removal from the books on 8 December 2023 and the refusal of further work in February 2024, although it did not strike out every detriment solely because of conflicting documents.

Applying the strike-out authorities it had set out, the tribunal held that strike out was appropriate and that the proceedings should not continue. It therefore struck out the claims under rule 38(1)(a) because they had no reasonable prospect of success. No monetary award was made.