Appeal No. EAT/500/92

	EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
	58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

		At the Tribunal
		On 9th October 1992

	Before

	THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE KNOX

	DR D GRIEVES CBE

	MRS P TURNER OBE

MR ENNIS C J McBRIDE	APPELLANT

HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL	RESPONDENTS

	Transcript of Proceedings

	JUDGMENT

Unrevised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	MR C JEANS
(Of Counsel)
Legal Department
County Hall
Hertford
SG13 8DE

	

	MR JUSTICE KNOX:  We will give a ruling on this.  Application has been made at the outset of this appeal by Mr McBride, who appears in person, to admit two categories of document, there were two others which were mentioned at the outset but they do not raise any difficulty because they are printed form which can perfectly well be incorporated into his argument and no problem arises about those.  The two disputed categories are first of all, notes of conversations with ladies called Helen Dunstan, Betty Bloomquest and Stella Lovey dated the 18th April 1991.

	The issue that is before this Tribunal is the Industrial Tribunal's decision that the initial complaint in Mr McBride's Originating Application was out of time under the provisions of Section 68 of the Race Relations Act 1976, and the question revolves around the identification of what the Act calls "the act".

	The initial allegation in Mr McBride's full details of the complaint which is enshrined form IT1, the Originating Application, reads:
"Social workers at the Welwyn Garden City Social Services Office made false allegations about me on the 11th April 1991."

and particulars have been given about that which do not alter that allegation.  What is sought to be introduced in these notes of conversations one week later is material upon which a claim would be made that the complaints made on the 11th April were part of a continuous act that went on beyond the 11th April and for that purpose should be connected with the conversations that took place on the 18th April.  This was a matter not before the Industrial Tribunal and which is sought now to put before us.  We are not prepared to allow that to be done because we are not satisfied that the existence of these conversations would be likely to make a significant impact on the issue which is before us as to whether the Industrial Tribunal was right to declare Mr McBride's complaint in respect of those complaints on the 11th April out of time.  We do not allow those notes to go in because we are not satisfied that the requirements, which are stringent for the admission of evidence before this Tribunal, which was not before the Industrial Tribunal are satisfied.

	The second category which is in dispute is the note that Mr McBride took of the oral decision at the time when the Chairman gave the initial oral decision of the Tribunal.  As frequently happens there were two stages in the giving of the Industrial Tribunal's decision.  There was an oral judgment and there were full written reasons which were sent to the parties on the 1st May 1992, the hearing was actually on the 28th April of this year.  There are three respects in which Mr McBride's note is terminologically different from the statement of the full reasons.  There has not been the procedure followed, which is fairly well known, for challenging a Chairman's notes under which it is incumbent on the person who wishes to challenge the written word to submit the version which he claims, or she claims, is correct for comment and that enables this Tribunal to consult the Chairman if it turns out that both parties are agreed in identifying some area or other in the written word of the Chairman.  However, that is not the principal reason why we do not propose to take time on this appeal in studying the differences between the two versions, the note contemporaneously of the oral version and the written full reasons.  The reason why we do not propose to regard the note separately from the written reasons is that the written reasons, in our view, do not, significantly, differ from the written reasons and from the oral record and to the extent to which they do they seem to us to fall amply within the general jurisdiction which the Tribunal has to revise the precise form of words that is used in the final written reasons.  I do not propose to take time in analysing the differences between the two versions, they do not strike me as being of any practical significance whatever and on that basis we propose to have regard to the full written reasons and not to explore the possibility of something different having been said orally.

	I should add that the reason that was given by Mr McBride for the late production of his written notes was the fact that he did not receive the skeleton argument on behalf of the Respondents until a late stage.  If it turns out that the Respondents, in their skeleton argument, or in their oral argument to us, are seeking to go behind the full written reasons in any way, we do not propose that to be done either, so that both parties will be tied to what the Industrial Tribunal gave as its considered full written reasons.