Miss J Singh v Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust — 2025

This was a public preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Holmes (sitting alone) at Manchester. The claimant, who appeared in person, had presented an ET1 on 11 March 2025 bringing a wide range of claims against Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, including unfair dismissal, discrimination on multiple protected characteristics (age, race, sex, pregnancy or maternity, marriage or civil partnership, disability, religion or belief), whistleblowing, and claims for notice pay, holiday pay, arrears of pay and other payments. The respondent applied for the claims to be struck out or for a deposit order, on the basis that the claimant's employment had ended on 14 April 2016 and the claims were therefore very substantially out of time.

The Tribunal found that the claims had been brought over eight years after the claimant's dismissal, more than thirty-two times the statutory three-month time limit. The claimant had been able to bring two earlier Tribunal claims in 2014 and 2015 and to appear at the EAT in December 2016, and had provided no real explanation for not bringing the present claims sooner, beyond stating that she had recently been advised to do so by the DWP. The Tribunal took her health and disabilities into account but concluded that the length of delay was fatal and that it was not just and equitable to extend time.

The Employment Judge also found that, aside from the unfair dismissal claim, the matters complained of either had been, or could and should have been, included in the claimant's previous Tribunal proceedings in 2014 and 2015, and so were also liable to be struck out under the principle in Henderson v Henderson. For these reasons all of the claimant's claims were held to have no reasonable prospects of success and were struck out.