)5 M v Respondent — 2017

The claimant presented claims for unfair dismissal, unauthorised deduction from wages, holiday pay, breach of contract (notice pay) and redundancy pay. The redundancy payment claim was withdrawn at a preliminary hearing on 27 July 2017. The tribunal also dealt with an application to amend the ET1 to add a claim of automatically unfair dismissal for protected disclosure based on an alleged discussion on 9 November 2016 about S's filming of young boys.

Applying Selkent Bus Company Limited v Moore, the tribunal refused leave to amend. It held that the proposed whistleblowing claim was a new claim based on new factual averments, that it was out of time, and that the claimant had not given a satisfactory explanation for the delay. The tribunal did not accept that he only realised the alleged reason for dismissal on receipt of the ET3 in April 2017, noting that he had known the relevant facts earlier and had legal advice until 5 July 2017.

The respondent applied to strike out the unfair dismissal claim under Rule 37(1)(b) and (e). The tribunal found that the claimant had conducted the proceedings in a scandalous and unreasonable manner by making irrelevant and abusive allegations about the respondent, S and a witness, and by intimidating a witness through a hand-delivered letter. Citing De Keyser Ltd v Wilson, it concluded that a fair hearing was no longer possible and struck out the unfair dismissal claim. The wage, holiday pay and notice pay claims were left to proceed to a later hearing.