The judge had been a solicitor at Thompsons who had in the past worked on several equal pay claims in the Welsh courts. The appellant alleged that in view of the number of claimants within the multiples (in the tens of thousands) Judge Moore was unable to say whether she may have been instructed to act for any of the claimants now involved in this litigation.

Lord Fairley, The President, rejected the appeal and one regarding consequent case management orders. Judge Moore had been right to reject the recusal application stating at [50] that the

"fair-minded and informed observer would also then have considered whether there was any real possibility that the case management decisions that the judge was about to take might be influenced by knowledge gained by her in her previous role within Thompsons. They would have recognised that mere knowledge of the law and the practice of equal pay litigation does not, of itself, give rise to any real possibility of bias"

Accordingly the test in Porter v Magill was clearly not met and nothing in the precautionary principle alters the correctness of that decision.