United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

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


 


JUDGE D M LEVY QC: There is an appeal on the ex-parte procedure listed by Mr Salawu in the complaint which he made to an Industrial Tribunal about his employer, Securicor Omega Express Ltd ("the Respondent").

The short background to the case is that Mr Salawu complained of unfair dismissal and race discrimination in a document received by the Industrial Tribunal at Bury-St-Edmunds on 26 February 1996. The Respondent entered a Notice of Appearance which was received on 2 April 1996, in which the Respondent said that the racial discrimination aspects of Mr Salawu's complaint were not clear to them and further, that Mr Salawu had resigned or left the Company's employee by his own conduct.

There was a hearing at the Industrial Tribunal on 10 May, when Mr Salawu did not attend. Efforts were made to contact him, but the matter was determined in his absence. The unanimous decision of the Tribunal was that he had terminated his own employment with the Respondent; he resigned, there was no dismissal and his claim for unfair dismissal therefore failed. The Tribunal also said that, in the absence of evidence of acts of race discrimination, the application alleging race discrimination was also dismissed.

Mr Salawu sought a review of that decision on the basis that he had been involved in a motor incident on the morning of the hearing and that was why he missed it. There was a review of the decision at London (South) on 31 October 1996, when Mr Salawu attended in person. The Tribunal disbelieved the explanation he gave and, in any event, thought it inappropriate for the case to be reinstated.

From all those decisions Mr Salawu appealed by a Notice of Appeal dated 28 May 1996. Efforts have been made to contact him to see if he was coming this morning, but they have been unsuccessful. We have waited until after lunch to give him every chance to attend before giving this judgment.

The matters which he raises in his Notice of Appeal start by saying that he was 20 minutes late for the hearing on 10 May and was told the case had already been heard. That is a matter which is dealt with in the review by the Chairman; we can see no merit in that ground of appeal. All the other grounds of appeal set out facts on which Mr Salawu now wishes to rely. If he had been present at the hearing, they may have been of assistance to him, but he missed the opportunity and we cannot now admit any evidence which was not brought before the Industrial Tribunal when it could have been.

It is always slightly unhappy when a complainant has not had a day in court, but in this instance it is clear to us that Mr Salawu was the maker of his own misfortunes. A litigant is entitled to one day in court. If he does not take that opportunity that has to be the end of it, unless there are clear reasons why he did not attend, which makes it imperative that there should be a further hearing.

Those reasons did not occur here and, in the circumstances, we dismiss the appeal.