Khaled Ahmed v Neela’s Home Ltd — 2022

Mr Ahmed worked for Neela’s Home Ltd as a delivery driver and stopped coming to work at the end of 2020. At a meeting on 5 February 2021 he said he had an issue with the company, had no respect for it, and was not going to come to work. The tribunal also noted that Mr Firoz raised £1,000 collected from a customer but not paid to the respondent. A disciplinary hearing was then arranged, and on 12 March 2021 Mr Ahmed was told by email that he was dismissed after he did not attend the hearing.

At the hearing Mr Ahmed identified three monetary claims: holiday pay, extra days worked and unpaid in the sum of £4,400, and a further claim he described as "handyman" work at £5,100. He also said he was not claiming unfair dismissal because he chose to leave, so the unfair dismissal claim was dismissed on withdrawal. The tribunal held that the extra-days claim and the handyman claim both related to periods before 31 December 2020 and were out of time. Mr Ahmed gave no explanation why it had not been reasonably practicable to bring those claims earlier.

The holiday pay claim was treated as the only claim in time because it related to holiday due at the end of employment, but it was not properly particularised. Mr Ahmed did not provide a sum or a clear analysis of the days claimed, and he had not complied with Judge Siddall's order of 26 August 2021 requiring clarification. The tribunal therefore struck out the holiday pay claim for non-compliance with that order. It added that, had the claim not been struck out, it would have failed on the merits because the evidence was too vague and much of the period claimed was too remote.