In person For the v Respondent — 2023

At a preliminary hearing at Watford by CVP on 5 and 6 January 2023, Employment Judge George dealt with three consolidated claims brought by Mr J Johnson against the Oxford Kilburn Youth Trust and others. The claimant's unfair dismissal claim under s.94 ERA 1996 was withdrawn and dismissed. The judge also allowed an amendment in part, permitting the OK Youth Trust to be added to LOI 11-14, but otherwise refused the amendment application.

Applying rule 37(1)(a) of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2013 and the cautious approach to strike out in discrimination cases discussed in Chandhok, Anyanwu, Ezsias and Ahir, the tribunal declined to strike out the allegations in LOI 1-4. Those allegations concerned a proposed contract clause, alleged non-disclosure of a prior race complaint, an allegedly delayed response to a funding request, and scrutiny of an arts proposal. The tribunal considered those matters arguable and said that they required evidence rather than determination at a preliminary hearing.

The tribunal also refused to strike out LOI 5-13, which covered the claimant's suspension, suspension review, lockout from email and WhatsApp, dismissal and grievance-related matters. It accepted that the grievance was highly likely to be a protected act and held that there was at least an arguable case that the respondent's stated safeguarding and candour concerns would need to be proved by cogent evidence, having regard to the burden-shifting provision in s.136 Equality Act 2010.

By contrast, LOI 14, alleging that the appeal was ignored, was struck out because the email at RB 615 showed that R3 invited the claimant to send comments within seven days. The claims against Worth Foundation Ltd and Debbie Garden were dismissed because there was no viable basis for treating them as agents of the OK Youth Trust for the post-claim allegations in claim 3. The tribunal also dismissed the allegations against Diana Kinder concerning contact about the appeal and the return of belongings, describing those points as having no reasonable prospects of success. Worth Foundation Ltd and Debbie Garden were removed as respondents. No remedy was assessed.