Mr. AZ Mohamed v University of Nottingham — 2020

This was a preliminary hearing concerning four claim forms. The tribunal struck out the first and second claim forms in their entirety. It held that it had no jurisdiction to determine fraud or GDPR complaints, and it had no jurisdiction over the breach of contract complaints because those claims were presented before the claimant's employment had terminated.

In the third claim form, the tribunal treated the pleading as containing an automatically unfair dismissal complaint under section 103A ERA 1996, an unlawful deductions from wages complaint, and a fraud complaint. The fraud complaint was struck out for want of jurisdiction. Taking the claimant's case at its highest, the tribunal assumed for present purposes that the stage 3 grievance might amount to a protected disclosure, but found no evidential basis on which dismissal could have been because of that grievance. The tribunal found the material before it showed the dismissal was for unauthorised absence connected with the claimant's three month research trip in Germany, and it also found there was no sum properly payable in wages while the claimant was absent without authorisation.

In the fourth claim form, the tribunal struck out the freestanding Human Rights Act/Article 10 complaint for want of jurisdiction. On race discrimination, the tribunal found the complaint about deletion of the claimant's video from Facebook was presented almost three months late, but concluded it was just and equitable to extend time because of the claimant's misunderstanding about needing to await the internal process outcome, his lack of legal advice, and the limited prejudice to the respondent. The tribunal nevertheless found the race claim had little reasonable prospect of success because the claimant had identified a comparator of a different nationality but had not pointed to facts from which the tribunal could conclude that nationality caused the treatment, and it therefore made a £150 deposit order.