This article was first published in the ELA Briefing.
In AYZ v BZA [2025] EAT 91, the employment tribunal refused the appellant’s anonymity application, holding that such an order would derogate from the principle of open justice. However, the EAT overturned that decision based on new evidence not presented to the tribunal, namely that in 2023, the claimant had previously made a police complaint alleging sexual assault by the respondent. This allegation concerned events that were not the subject of the tribunal claim; the tribunal claim did not include allegations of a criminal offence and the existence of the police report had not been raised with the tribunal in the original anonymity application. Nevertheless, the EAT held that in order to comply with s.1 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 (SOA), the claimant must be granted permanent anonymity. The SOA provides lifelong anonymity to complainants in sexual offences cases. Although the respondent had not been questioned arrested or charged in relation to the alleged offence, the police complaint amounted to an ‘allegation’ under the SOA. The EAT held that the anonymity provisions under the SOA do extend to a judgement in a non-criminal matter.
The EAT noted that without anonymity there was a risk that the claimant might become identifiable from the judgment or by means of ‘jigsaw identification’, where a reader of the tribunal or EAT judgment could link the appellant to the sexual assault allegation. In addition to granting the order, the EAT took several additional steps to protect the anonymity of both parties, including issuing two separate judgments with a time gap, using a random combination of initials for the parties and omitting reference to counsel names and hearing dates. The EAT noted that identifying one party could risk identifying the other.
