United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE BY OR REPRESENTATION ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT


 


JUDGE HULL QC: This is an appeal to us by Mrs Hilda Boma Bastel, a lady aged 29. She was first employed by the Respondents, London Underground Ltd as a Station Assistant at Liverpool Street Station in January 1995. She was employed on a temporary contract for twelve months. It was referred to in a sense as being a probationary period. She had not worked for London Underground before.

Mrs Bastel did not give every satisfaction to her employers. During the first year of her employment (till December 1995) she was absent for long periods, I think it was 61 days of the first 10½ months of her employment she was absent sick. When she was to see a doctor she missed the appointment because she was away on holiday. So it was not entirely satisfactory. Indeed, she showed other characteristics which were criticised by her employers. She liked to go off early without authority and she was inclined to be extremely insubordinate, indeed insulting, on occasion. So that although she was obviously not without good qualities, there were grave doubts about whether her contract should be renewed at all. It was renewed for three months and she was transferred to Aldgate, she there served as Station Assistant. Eventually it was decided not to renew her contract any further and her last date of employment was 28 March 1996.

Mrs Bastel complained to the Industrial Tribunal that there had been a breach of contract in failing to renew her contract, or in terminating her contract. There was a hearing before the Industrial Tribunal on 14 November 1996 before Mr Pritchard-Witts, the Chairman, sitting with two Industrial Members. That Industrial Tribunal found that there had been no breach of contract and no discrimination and she now appeals to us.

It is a careful decision by the Industrial Tribunal. Mrs Bastel, incidentally, complained not merely of a breach of contract but of discrimination on the ground of gender - because she was a woman.

The Industrial Tribunal go into the facts and state, with a great deal more detail than we have, the facts of the case. They directed themselves with great care as to how they should approach the question of discrimination which had been raised. They gave details of her insubordinate and unsatisfactory behaviour. They say how the question of renewing her contract was gone into and how it was decided in effect to give her the benefit of the doubt and to renew it for the three months but then, not unreasonably, the employers decided not to renew the contract again.

The Industrial Tribunal found there was no breach of contract. They found that there was no discrimination and they reported an incident which happened very much towards the end of the contract in February 1996 when her behaviour really had been very bad and she had been most insulting. They took into account matters such as a bereavement which she had suffered and they found that it was with total justification that she was given notice designed to expire on 30 March 1996 and that her allegations of discrimination were entirely groundless. So they found that she had no grounds for complaint.

It is from that decision that she appeals to us and the Citizens Advice Bureau have very helpfully put in a Notice of Appeal, saying that the Industrial Tribunal failed to consider all the evidence before it - evidence that she had been discriminated against was not considered - and that the Industrial Tribunal could not have reached a finding on the primary facts when they were not considered and that this is an error of law and based on a misinterpretation of the Act. All that we can say is that we find no substantiation of those matters.

Today the Appellant, as she now is, has not attended. We have a letter faxed to us from Hackney Citizens Advice Bureau who tried to help her, saying:

"We have informed Mrs Bastel of the Hearing and asked her to contact us on a number of occasions. As we have received no response, we do not have a basis on which to make a decision on her behalf."

It appears to us that there is nothing to support this appeal. It cannot possibly go forward. It is in our list under our Practice Direction and we must now order it to be dismissed and we do so.