The claimant brought 13 separate claims alleging race, sex and disability discrimination, dismissal, whistleblowing and victimisation. At a preliminary hearing the judge excluded three allegations the claimant said were pleaded: a threatened redeployment, reporting him to the ICO over data breaches while ignoring others', and failure to protect his personal documents held by an external barrister. The claimant appealed, arguing these allegations were plain from the pleadings, which had been written in a narrative style, and that the judge's overall approach was overly restrictive.

John Bowers KC, sitting as a deputy, allowed the appeal in part. He found the redeployment threat was discernible from the pleadings, though only barely, and reinstated it. He rejected the two other allegations as it was tantamount to looking for "a needle in a haystack." He also reiterated warnings against narrative-style pleading.