In person For the First v Respondent — 2020

The hearing took place at Cambridge on 8 and 9 October 2020 before Employment Judge K J Palmer with Ms Wendy Smith and Mr Ron Eyre as members. The tribunal noted that earlier case-management documents had transposed the two case numbers, but confirmed that 3335276/2018 was the live case. It also recorded that the respondents had withdrawn their own strike-out application, and it refused the claimant's application to strike out the respondents' responses for non-compliance with directions connected to that withdrawn application.

The tribunal accepted the claimant's earlier witness statement from the aborted 26 May 2020 hearing, refused her request for an adjournment, and allowed an amendment to include issues 3g, 3h, 3i and 3l under Selkent Bus Company v Moore [1996] ICR 836. It treated issue 3c as already raised in the ET1 and described the added issues as protected disclosure allegations. No merits findings were made on the substantive claims.

When the claimant then refused to proceed using the respondents' bundle and continued to shout and ignore directions, the tribunal struck out all of her claims of its own initiative under Rule 37(1)(b). It also said the same conduct justified strike-out under Rule 37(1)(c) and that the claims had not been actively pursued within Rule 37(1)(d). No monetary award was made because the claims were struck out before the merits hearing completed.