Ms C Punshon v The Royal Latin School — 2024

The claimant presented her ET1 on 4 April 2023 and had worked for the respondent as a Teacher of Computing from 1 September 2022 to 19 February 2023. The pleaded case was one of race and sex discrimination, including harassment related to race and sex and direct race and sex discrimination. A preliminary hearing had already identified the issues, and a final hearing was listed for 7 to 11 October 2024. At this hearing on 9 April 2024, the Tribunal dealt with the respondent's application for strike-out, unless order and costs, together with the claimant's application for an unless order and certain case-management issues; the claimant later withdrew her joinder application.

The Tribunal found that the claimant had repeatedly contacted the respondent's employees, officers, agents and potential witnesses despite a 11 May 2023 letter from VWV asking that all future correspondence go to the solicitors only. It accepted evidence that she made repeated allegations of fraud, conspiracy to defraud, misappropriation of public funds, defamation and threats against Mr Hudson, Mr AB, Mr Dart and Ms Kay, and that she sent similar allegations to the Tribunal, VWV, the police and other bodies. The Tribunal found that her account of an email from Ms Morgan of the Department for Education was misleading, and that there was no evidence linking Mr AB to the Quora post about hitting a teacher with a bat. It also relied on the police statement of Sergeant Broughton, which recorded that the harassment allegation against Mr AB was closed with no harassment confirmed.

The Tribunal held that the claimant's conduct, taken as a whole, was scandalous and unreasonable, and that it was intended to cause anxiety, distress and embarrassment to the respondent and its witnesses. It therefore made a case-management order requiring the claimant to direct communications to VWV and not to contact any respondent employee, officer, agent, witness or potential witness directly or indirectly, including by copying them into emails, using online communities, text messages, social media, calls or voicemail. It nevertheless refused to strike out the claims at this stage, holding that a fair trial was still possible if the case was managed robustly and witnesses were able to give evidence remotely if necessary.

The Tribunal refused the claimant's own application for an unless order because the Michelle Taylor report had already been disclosed. It also allowed the respondent's costs application under rule 76(1)(a), but did not quantify the amount at this hearing; the judgment records that quantification would have to be dealt with later.