Mr Michael Greatorex v Ministry of Defence — 2022

The claimant was a Royal Navy reservist and brought a claim alleging harassment by reason of gender reassignment, together with claims for arrears of pay and other payments. The tribunal considered whether the Equality Act claim could proceed in light of s.121 Equality Act 2010, which requires a relevant unwithdrawn service complaint before an armed forces discrimination complaint can be brought in the Employment Tribunal.

The tribunal found that the claimant's earlier service complaints referred to bullying or harassment but did not refer to gender reassignment discrimination. A later document dated 6 April 2021, Annex F, did refer to transgender discrimination, but the tribunal found that it had been treated as a new complaint and had not already become an admissible service complaint. The Ombudsman's correspondence did not show that Annex F had already been accepted as a service complaint.

The tribunal concluded that the service complaint gateway was not met and struck out the Equality Act claim for want of jurisdiction. It also accepted the respondent's submissions that the tribunal had no jurisdiction over the arrears of pay and breach of contract complaints by a member of the Armed Forces; after this was explained, the claimant accepted the point and asked that those claims be dismissed on withdrawal.