Mr Martin Akioyame v Epsom and St Helier University Hospital NHS Trust — 2024

At the hearing on 18 June 2024 before Employment Judge J S Burns, the tribunal read the bundle, the claimant's further particulars/amendment documents, and the respondent's written submissions. No witness evidence was heard. The judgment dealt with the scope of the wages claim and the amendment applications; it did not determine the merits of the remaining substantive claims beyond those procedural rulings.

On the unlawful deduction from wages claim, the tribunal applied section 23 ERA 1996, including the two-year long-stop in section 23(4A). It held that the claimed sums of £22,200 and £5,328 related to deductions outside the two-year period and were barred. It also held that the £8,214 claim was not shown to fall within the exception for a late claim and struck out that part. The first £1,998 item in the schedule of loss, described as "30/05/2022-18/05/2022", was treated as unclear and potentially part of a series with the later £1,998 item for 01/10/2022 to 28/12/2022, so it was not struck out. The later £1,998 item was also left to trial.

The tribunal refused the claimant's application to add a direct age discrimination claim and refused the application to add new material to the direct race discrimination claim in paragraphs 3.1 to 3.4 of the document entitled "Further and Better Particulars For Hearing on 18/6/2024". Applying the Selkent principles, it found that the proposed additions introduced new issues, were delayed, were vague in part, and would risk the listed seven-day trial in November 2024. The judgment records that the direct race discrimination claim remained limited to the matters identified at the earlier case management hearing, namely the rota changes during the pandemic, the unanswered complaints about rota changes, retrospective removal of days from the rota, cancellation of study leave, the requirement to prove hours worked at Ashstead Hospital, and threats to recover overpaid wages.