The Claimant brought various claims to the ET including ordinary unfair dismissal and detriment for having made protected disclosures. A few months into proceedings and after preliminary hearings, he applied to amend his application to add a complaint that he had been unfairly dismissed for the reason or principal reason that he had made protected disclosures. The ET refused to allow the amendments saying that the Respondent was entitled to know the case against it and reasonably concluded at the latest by May 2020 that all claimed disclosures had been raised. The Claimant appealed.

The EAT allowed the appeal. Amongst other reasons, the ET had proceeded on an erroneous factual basis that the first occasion on which the Claimant had identified that he was seeking to pursue such a complaint was at a preliminary hearing in May 2020, when he had in fact expressly identified this in a draft list of issues tabled, in accordance with a direction of the tribunal, in February 2020.