At a Preliminary Hearing before the ET to determine whether the Claimant’s claims of discrimination and harassment had been brought in time (and, if not, whether to extend time), the Claimant made an application to amend to raise new matters post-dating the submission of the claim form. The ET held that the claim had been submitted outside the statutory time limit and declined to extend time. Their reserved judgment did not determine the application to amend and the written reasons did not address the substance of the issues raised in that application.

The EAT, applying Prakash v Wolverhampton City Council, held that the ET had erred in not determining the application to amend the claim, even though the matters raised post-dated the filing of the claim form. The matters raised in the amendment application were also potentially relevant to the questions of whether the Claimant had demonstrated a prima facie case that her complaint was one of conduct extending over a period and, if not, whether time ought to have been extended in relation to the other matters. The Claimant’s appeal was allowed with the application to amend the claim and lime limit issues remitted to a differently constituted Employment Tribunal.