At the Tribunal | |
Before
MR RECORDER UNDERHILL QC
MRS R CHAPMAN
MS S R CORBY
APPELLANT | |
RESPONDENT |
Transcript of Proceedings
JUDGMENT
PRELIMINARY HEARING
For the Appellant | No appearance or representation by or on behalf of the Appellant |
MR RECORDER UNDERHILL QC
"9 Ms Colley had written to the Employment Tribunal service marked 'for the attention of the Chairman' a letter dated 16 July 2001. In that letter, Ms Colley asked the Chairman to exercise her discretion and to admit further evidence. She had apparently sent a copy of her letter of 16th July to the Respondent's representative, but from the file it could not be seen that the Respondent's representative had commented on the application.
10 The Chairman considered Ms Colley's application to submit this further evidence with the members of the Tribunal when they reconvened on 15 August 2001. It was a unanimous decision not to admit the evidence. It had been many weeks after the close of the oral hearing. Ms Colley said in her letter that the documents were submitted late because in the shock of events after Mr Hardway's dismissal, he had overlooked their existence. The Tribunal noted the assiduousness with which Ms Colley had conducted the entire proceedings hitherto. The other difficult events that were going on in their lives at the same time as preparing for this hearing did not appear to affect Ms Colley's ability to prepare the case other than the omission of this one document. The Tribunal did not accept Ms Colley's reasons for the late submission of this evidence. Moreover, it was manifestly unfair for evidence to be tendered by one party once the proceedings had closed because in effect such conduct denies the other party an opportunity to respond thereon."
(a) explained the importance of the Drivers Rules, and suggested revisions to her submissions to take account of it, and
(b) apologised for not having referred to the Drivers Rules before, and explained the omission by reference to problems in her and the Appellant's lives at that time: in the skeleton these problems were identified as including unemployment, credit blacklisting, house repossession and medical treatment which Miss Colley was undergoing.
"The Tribunal found"
[We interpose that that is a plain finding of fact]
"that at the investigative stage (Mr Harding), disciplinary stage (Mr Whitwell) and appeal stage (Mr Banaghan) the question of the reliability of Mr Seabrook's evidence was considered in detail and that the Respondent had good reason for finding that Mr Seabrook had made proper checks of the train notwithstanding the shortness of time. The Tribunal also found that the Respondent had good reason for holding that undue reliance could not be placed on document 57 - (8(b(i) of the Respondent's submission refers more fully). Essentially document 57 represents only half the records; the other half of the records having been destroyed."