Mr Gwynn Price Rowlands (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2024

The tribunal granted the claimant permission to amend her claim to add Ms Ruth Griffin as the Fourth Respondent. It then considered timeliness and strike out issues at a public preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Alliott sitting alone.

The direct disability discrimination claims against the First Respondent were based on events in May to July 2020, namely the claimant being told she would return from redeployment to the Hertsmere Team and then being deployed there. The claim form was presented on 19 August 2022, and after deducting the early conciliation period the tribunal treated events before 9 April 2022 as prima facie out of time. Applying the approach in Aziz v FDA and Lyfar, it found there was no prima facie continuing act linking the 2020 team-transfer complaints with the April 2022 interview complaint.

On the just and equitable issue, the tribunal held the delay was very substantial. It accepted that waiting for the grievance outcome or, at the latest, the termination of employment in February 2021 might have been arguable starting points, but still found the claim to be significantly late. It rejected the claimant's explanation based on mental health, noting that she brought three grievances, worked full time, had union support and legal advice, and had said she wanted to maintain cordial relations with the First Respondent. It also noted the age of the events and the departure of one relevant witness, and struck out the direct disability discrimination claims for want of jurisdiction.

The tribunal also considered allegations based on protected disclosures in September 2018 and January 2019. It declined to strike out or order a deposit in relation to the whistleblowing claims, finding that the claimant had not been shown to have no or little reasonable prospect of success. By contrast, it held that there was no link to the Equality Act for the alleged protected acts, so the victimisation claims had no reasonable prospect of success and were struck out. It further held that any time issue concerning claims against the Second Respondent should be left to the full merits hearing because the claimant had shown a prima facie case that some pleaded events post-dated 18 May 2022.