Case 3307335/2020 · Employment Tribunal
Mr C Smelt v Freeman Automotive (uk) Ltd — 2026
- Case reference
- 3307335/2020
- Decision date
- 30 April 2026
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Alliott Date
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr C Smelt
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant brought a complaint of unfair dismissal against Freeman Automotive (UK) Ltd. The tribunal recorded that section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires two years' service to bring an unfair dismissal complaint, and found that Mr Smelt had been employed for less than two years.
On that basis, the tribunal held that he was not entitled to bring the proceedings. It also recorded that he had been given the opportunity to provide an acceptable reason why the complaint should not be struck out, but did not do so. The claim was therefore struck out in full.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | Whole claim struck out because the claimant had less than two years' service and did not have the required qualifying service for an unfair dismissal complaint under section 108 ERA 1996. | Struck out | — | — |
Legal tests applied
1 reference- s.108 Employment Rights Act 1996
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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