Mr S Catchpole v King’s College London — 2025

At a public preliminary hearing on 24 March 2025, Employment Judge T Perry considered the claimant’s harassment related to disability claim and the respondent’s application to strike it out. The claimant identified a series of alleged incidents by Dr Sanderson in December 2023 and January 2024, including emails about a shared freezer and signage, an email attaching the compassionate leave policy, criticism at a meeting on 19 January 2024 about a freezer repair failure and the claimant’s explanation that his father had just died, and later emails about a lift containing sarcastic remarks and copying in senior colleagues.

The tribunal held that the claim had no reasonable prospects of success on the merits. The claimant’s case was that the conduct made his health worse, but he was not alleging a mental link to disability and confirmed that he was not saying the matters were done because of his disability. The tribunal found no objective link between the conduct and the protected characteristic, and held that the fact the conduct may have exacerbated his condition did not of itself make it conduct related to disability. On that basis the harassment related to disability claim was struck out under rule 38(1)(a) of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2024.

The respondent also relied on time limits, but the tribunal said it would not have struck out the claim on that basis. The judge noted the broad discretion under section 123 of the Equality Act 2010 and said that only limited evidence had been taken on why the claim had not been issued sooner and what steps the claimant had taken to inform himself of his rights. The strike out therefore rested on the substantive merits point rather than limitation.