ETZ 4(WR) EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4122844/2018 Preliminary Hearing Held at Portree on March 2019 Employment Judge: M A Macleod (sitting alone) Mrs Clare Stones v Civil Nuclear Police Authority — 2019

At a preliminary hearing in Portree, the tribunal first addressed the claimant's unfair dismissal claim. Although the respondent did not dispute that she was employed under a contract of employment, the tribunal held that she was in police service as a member of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, a constabulary maintained by virtue of an enactment. On that basis, section 200 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 excluded the unfair dismissal provisions and the claim was dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

The tribunal then dealt with the claimant's oral application to amend her claim in light of further and better particulars. The proposed amendments were treated as four new heads of claim: indirect discrimination arising from the requirement that CNC officers be qualified as authorised firearms officers, indirect discrimination arising from the requirement to retrain to recover AFO status, victimisation, and detriment claims said to arise from protected disclosures. The judge recorded that points about ill-health retirement and whether the respondent recognised the claimant as disabled were background matters rather than separate heads of claim.

Applying the Selkent guidance and the relevant time-limit provisions, the tribunal held that the proposed discrimination claims were significant new allegations that went beyond the ET1 and related to events from years earlier. It found that the whistleblowing allegations were very late and that it had not been shown that it was not reasonably practicable to present them in time. For the discrimination amendments, the judge concluded that it would not be just and equitable to allow them to proceed, taking into account the age of the allegations, the wider scope of the proposed case, and the burden on the respondent in investigating and defending them.

The application to amend was refused. The judgment states that the remaining claims already pleaded in the ET1 would proceed to a merits hearing following the further steps set out in the accompanying note. No remedy was determined in this judgment.