Case 3314759/2022 · Employment Tribunal
Mr C Rees Ms R Alamwala Mr R Nathwani Ms I Ahmed Mrs M Birdi v Brunel University London — 2023
- Case reference
- 3314759/2022
- Decision date
- 3 September 2023
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge R Lewis Appearances
- Venue
- Watford
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr C Rees Ms R Alamwala Mr R Nathwani Ms I Ahmed Mrs M Birdi
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningAt the preliminary hearing on 7 and 8 March 2024 before Employment Judge R Lewis, the tribunal dealt with amendment and strike-out applications under rule 37. The judge said discrimination claims required a causal link between the protected characteristic or protected act and the detriment, and that chronology alone was not enough. After those issues were determined, some claims or parts of claims continued, including parts of H4, part of H5, H10, H11 and H12.
H1 was struck out because it was a workplace pay-system complaint unrelated to a protected characteristic. H2 was struck out to the extent it pre-dated 1 November 2022 and amendment for later events was refused. H3, which alleged victimisation because of Ms Ahmed's 2019 grievance, was struck out as inherently implausible. H6, concerning the Brunel Help IT rollout, was also struck out on broadly the same reasoning. H7 was withdrawn and dismissed, H13 was withdrawn, and H14 was struck out for lack of jurisdiction and no reasonable prospect of success because it concerned a GMB branch complaint about an internal GMB election.
On H5, the tribunal held that the claim based on Mr Jones's reference to his '30 years' experience' could not succeed as age-related harassment or direct age discrimination and was struck out. The separate complaint based on 'those who came back' was not treated as a stand-alone age claim. On H8, the remarks in the grievance interview about 'illnesses don't disappear' were held incapable of supporting pregnancy-related discrimination because the pregnancy was outside the protected period, and incapable of supporting disability discrimination on the basis advanced. On H9, the remarks 'reining her in' and 'how do I manage' were held not to be related to gender and were struck out.
Ms Ahmed confirmed that she no longer pursued H11 as race discrimination, and the tribunal allowed amendments in H11 and H12 to add religion discrimination claims, which were left to continue. No monetary remedy was decided in this judgment because the surviving claims were not determined at this stage.
Claims and outcomes
13 findings recordedThis case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.
| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other | Heading 1. The tribunal struck out the workplace pay-system complaint as unrelated to a protected characteristic. Ms Ahmed's point about a fall in pay from Band 3 to Band 2 was treated as part of the separate demotion/religion issue, not as a standalone H1 claim. | Struck out | — | — |
| Other | Heading 2. The claim about failure to conduct a HERA review after 2021 was struck out to the extent it pre-dated 1 November 2022, and amendment to include later events was refused. | Struck out | — | — |
| Victimisation | Heading 3. The claim alleged that the 2021/2022 restructure was pursued as victimisation because of Ms Ahmed's 2019 grievance. The tribunal found the allegation inherently implausible and with no reasonable prospect of success. | Struck out | — | — |
| Age discrimination | Heading 5. The claim based on Mr Jones's July 2022 reference to his '30 years' experience' was struck out as direct age discrimination. The tribunal held the remark was an accurate statement of fact and not less favourable treatment. | Struck out | Age | — |
| Harassment | Heading 5. The same '30 years' experience' remark was also struck out as age-related harassment because, on an objective reading, it was not capable of creating or being reasonably interpreted as creating a hostile environment. |
Legal tests applied
4 references- rule 37
- chronology is necessary but not sufficient for causation
- amendment: recasting/re-labelling and balance of prejudice
- ordinary and natural meaning
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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