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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Haralambous v Ancaster Toys Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 1648 (18 October 2002)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2002/1648.html
Cite as: [2002] EWCA Civ 1648
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM AN EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE JR REID QC)
Strand London, WC2 Friday, 18th October 2002 |
||
B e f o r e :
____________________
| LAZAROS HARALAMBOUS | Applicant | |
| -v- | ||
| ANCASTER TOYS LIMITED | Respondent |
____________________
Smith Bernal Wordwave Limited
190 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2AG
Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Fax No: 020 7831 8838
(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
The Applicant appeared in person.
The Respondent did not appear and was unrepresented.
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
- LORD JUSTICE PETER GIBSON: This is an application for permission to appeal by Lazaros Haralambous from the order of the EAT at a preliminary hearing of Mr Haralambous' appeal on 1st July 2002. The appeal was from the decision of an Employment Tribunal in Nottingham sent to the parties on 21st November 2001. The EAT dismissed the appeal.
- Mr Haralambous is a Greek Cypriot. He has a physical disability because of injury to his legs. He was employed as an engineer and assembly operative from 29th November 1999 to 2nd February 2000 by Ancaster Toys Limited, a small company owned by Dr John Bates and operated from Dr Bates' home. Mr Haralambous assisted in the manufacturing process of a puzzle called "Q-Maze". From 28th January 2000 to 2nd February 2000 he was not paid his wages. During five of those days he was at a toy fair at Olympia and was on his way to the fair on the sixth day, 2nd February, in Dr Bates' car when he had an altercation with Dr Bates. Dr Bates took him to Stevenage and told him to return to Grantham. He did not do so and never returned to work. He effectively resigned. He consulted the Citizens Advice Bureau,, which wrote a letter on his behalf claiming £276.21 as well as travel costs. As the Tribunal found, the letter contained an error claiming too little. The employer did eventually pay the sum claimed, but because of the error there was a short fall of £66.46.
- Mr Haralambous presented an Originating Application to the Tribunal. He complained in it of non-payment of wages due. It seems that he must have complained later of direct racial discrimination, though it is not apparent from the IT1 contained in the papers before me. The complaint was that he suffered less favourable treatment on racial grounds, and from the matters dealt with by the Tribunal it was in respect of his rates of pay, the instructions given by Dr Bates that Mr Haralambous was not to smoke in the work room, Dr Bates' directions as to the position of a box by the workbench and a discussion, initiated by Dr Bates, of the merits of a Cyprus cheese. Those were the matters dealt with by the Tribunal.
- The Tribunal awarded Mr Haralambous £66.46 for the unlawful deduction of wages, but it dismissed the race relations claim. It found no less favourable treatment on the ground of race nor any detriment.
- Mr Haralambous appealed to the EAT. At the preliminary hearing he did not appear; nor was he represented; nor did he put in a skeleton argument. The EAT in dismissing his appeal found no point of law in his appeal. Its jurisdiction is, of course, limited to points of law, as indeed is the jurisdiction of this court.
- Mr Haralambous in seeking permission to appeal from this court has set out grounds of appeal. I intend no discourtesy to him when I say that those grounds are extraordinarily difficult to understand and even more difficult is it to see what is the point of law which Mr Haralambous is saying is contained in his appeal. The grounds of appeal seem to range over a wide spectrum of matters, including the involvement of police, and indeed there is a reference to a killing. Very little of the grounds of appeal seems to be directed to anything that the Tribunal decided.
- Mr Haralambous has appeared before me today in person. I have endeavoured to point out to him that it was for him to identify a point of law. He has addressed me on a wide range of complaints against the employer, but I am afraid he has not been able to do more than raise further complaints about the employer. He has not identified what is the point of law arising from the Tribunal's decision. It is no good him referring to other matters of complaint. What he had to do was to show me that in its conclusions of fact the Tribunal arguably made an error such as could be categorised as a point of law. There are no notes of evidence. I have nothing other than what appears from the documents put before me. No such arguable error has been shown. In the absence of any point of law, no appeal could possibly arise, an appeal would have no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason for hearing the appeal.
- Mr Haralambous is obviously deeply troubled by what has occurred. I sympathise with anyone who is in that position, but he has not, I am afraid, shown any valid ground for this appeal to be permitted. Accordingly, I must dismiss this application.
Friday, 18th October 2002