The Claimant worked for a charity for a number of months, until it terminated the relationship. In three subsequent claims he brought multiple complaints, principally of detrimental treatment on grounds of having made protected disclosures, such treatment being said to have occurred both during the course of the relationship and subsequent to its termination, and of unfair dismissal for the reason or principal reason of having made protected disclosures. The ET, at a PH, dismissed a number of complaints as being out of time or struck them out as having no reasonable prospect of success. It also made a deposit order in respect of one pair of complaints. At a full merits hearing, the ET concluded that the protected disclosures had not been made out. The Claimant appealed.

The EAT allowed the appeal in part. The ET did not err in its decision arising from a PH (as varied upon reconsideration) to dismiss a number of complaints as being out of time or to strike them out as having no reasonable prospect of success of being found to be in time. Guidance in Arthur v London Eastern Railway Limited [2006] EWCA Civ 1538; [2007] ICR 193 on the meaning of a “series of similar acts” in section 48(3)(a) Employment Rights Act 1996 considered and applied. The ET at the PH erred in making a deposit order in respect of one pair of complaints. The ET at the subsequent full merits hearing erred in its determination of whether certain claimed protected disclosures were made out and whether certain claimed detrimental treatment on grounds of protected disclosures had occurred; and it omitted to determine one particular complaint.