Miss Sophia Henry v The Office of the Public Guardian Record of a Closed Preliminary Hearing by CVP at the Employment Tribunal — 2025

At the closed preliminary hearing on 30 January 2025, Employment Judge Broughton, sitting alone, dealt with clarification of the issues and an application to amend. The respondent had already conceded that the claimant's anxiety and keratoconus were disabilities at the relevant time under section 6 Equality Act 2010. The hearing concerned the scope of the claimant's disability discrimination case, which included reasonable-adjustments complaints about office attendance and homeworking, the recording of disability-related absence, the provision of auxiliary aids, and a harassment claim under section 26.

The tribunal applied the Selkent amendment approach and the balance of injustice and hardship, together with the section 123 Equality Act time-limit authorities. It held that a large part of the material in the claimant's later documents was not a new cause of action but further factual particularisation of the pleaded claims. That included allegations about Cally Beech, Hannah Kirk, Charlotte Spencer, Irem Malik, Marie Meir, and the continuing complaint that homeworking should be made permanent and that disability-related absences were being recorded as sickness absence. The judge also treated the March and May 2024 material as part of the same ongoing dispute about adjustments and the treatment of the claimant's condition.

The tribunal refused some discrete allegations as new or out of time, including the separate harassment allegations against Stephanie, Neil Faulkner, Amna, and Chris King, and the alleged failure to make adjustments at the 16 February 2024 meeting. It also refused the informal attendance review meeting in September 2023 as a separate allegation, while allowing some of the surrounding facts to remain as background to the pleaded claims. The judgment records that the amendment application succeeds in part and that a further telephone case management hearing would be listed to finalise the issues.