United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	APPELLANT NEITHER PRESENT NOR REPRESENTED


 


MR RECORDER LANGSTAFF QC

1. We have before us an Appeal from a decision of the London Central Employment Tribunal promulgated on 13 September 2000. Mr Springall who had indicated in writing every intention of being present to pursue the Appeal is not before us and we have taken the view that it is nonetheless appropriate to proceed in his absence having given some 2½ hours this morning him for him to be present. Phone calls have been made and there has been no indication that he intends to come to pursue the case.
2. The complaints which the Employment Tribunal considered were breach of contract of employment, a claim for an itemised pay statement, a complaint of racial discrimination in employment, a complaint on health and safety grounds that he had to deal with hazardous substances and unfair dismissal for exercising a statutory right. This arose after and in the circumstances in which it appears Mr Springall had been employed for 3 hours in total on 1 day only - the 6 June 2000.
3. The Employment Tribunal under the chairmanship of Mrs Don considered the complaints one by one and they rejected them, having concluded that the reason why Mr Springall and the Respondent had parted company was that the cleaning which he was engaged to do had been done slowly and poorly.
4. The findings in the Employment Tribunal speak for themselves. It is sufficient to say that we can see no reason in themselves why there is any arguable point of law upon which Mr Springall could found an Appeal. However, Mr Springall has said that those decisions were reached by a Tribunal which was biased against him. We have read what he has written in respect of bias and we have had regard to the affidavits of the Chairman and her supporting lay members of the Tribunal which roundly reject those criticisms.
5. We see the allegations of bias as having no particular focus nor do we see any reason why the Tribunal should have been biased against Mr Springall. We do not think that they had in any event any apparent effect on the decision in the way in which they are described by him and having considered the scattered and sometimes apparently extreme nature of some of the comments that Mr Springall makes we think that it would be difficult to give credibility to his allegations. Accordingly, we see nothing in those allegations which would justify this matter going further and we dismiss the Appeal.