United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

BAILII case number: [1996] UKEAT 732_94_0507

Appeal No. EAT/732/94

EMPOLYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

At the Tribunal

On 5 July 1996

Before

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (P)

MR J SHRIGLEY

MRS P TURNER OBE

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MR R P DUDLEY          APPELLANT

PETERBOROUGH CITY COUNCIL          RESPONDENTS

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Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised


 


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APPEARANCES

For the Appellant MR G J HEWITT

(Solicitor)

Messrs Hinton Hewitt & Co

12 Market Square

Whittlesey

Peterborough

Cambs

PE7 1QE


 


MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (PRESIDENT): We are not impressed by the fact that you [Mr Hewitt] secured a two month adjournment from the Appeal Tribunal at the end of April in order to get this appeal ready for hearing and it is still not ready. We are concerned, however, that the allegation you raise is a serious one. It cannot be ignored without further examination. It is a new point as far as we are concerned. It has never been mentioned in the Notice of Appeal or in any correspondence with this Tribunal. What we are going to do is stringent, but it should produce, if it can be produced, the information we need to decide whether this appeal has any legal question in it.

This Preliminary Hearing is adjourned for two weeks. Within one week Mr Dudley is to swear an Affidavit, saying in detail what he alleges against the Chairman of the Tribunal, in relation to the receipt of a letter from Detective Superintendent Chamberlain of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. As we understand the allegation, it is that the Chairman received a letter from that source, and that that letter was not put before the parties to the Tribunal or their representatives. That is a serious allegation of procedural irregularity. It has to be detailed in Mr Dudley's Affidavit.

Secondly, you are to submit within a week what you propose are the grounds of this appeal. The present Notice of Appeal, served as long ago as August 1994, does not disclose any legal ground of appeal.

Thirdly, we will write a letter to the Chairman of the Industrial Tribunal, asking for him to produce the letter referred to on page 38 of the notes, and to give such explanation as he is able to at this distance of time about the origin of that letter and what part it played in the proceedings and the decision.

If we do not have any satisfactory response on all these matters in two weeks time, then the highly likely result of another Preliminary Hearing without solid information of the kind requested, would be that the appeal would be dismissed. It has already been waiting for far too long.