A legal battle by a Sellafield whistleblower has taken an unusual turn.

Diversity and inclusion consultant Alison McDermott submitted a whistleblowing and victimisation claim to the Employment Tribunal against Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority after her contract was terminated in 2018.

She claimed this happened after she raised concerns about a bullying culture at Sellafield.

Now Ms McDermott has applied to strike out Sellafield's and the NDA's responses in her case.

A one-day hearing is due to be held at Manchester’s employment tribunal to discuss the strike-out order application on July 7. If successful, a planned trial would no longer go ahead and a remedy hearing would be held.

Sellafield had already spent more than £75,000 and the NDA more than £35,000 as of March of this year in legal costs to deal with Ms McDermott’s case.

Speaking in general terms about strike-out orders, Joanne Stronach, head of employment law and HR at Cumbria-based Cartmell Shepherd, said: “In 25 years I don’t think I have ever had a claimant wanting to make such an application.

“I represent both employers and employees in different cases and this situation is very unusual. I’ve only applied for this type of order for an employer three times, but never for an employee.”

Parties in an employment case can apply for a response in a claim to be struck out on any of five grounds. Those include that the claim or response is vexatious or has no reasonable prospect of success; that the manner in which the proceedings have been conducted by one of the parties is unreasonable; that the claim is not been actively pursued.

A Freedom of Information request submitted by Ms McDermott through the website WhatDoTheyKnow revealed that Sellafield had incurred legal costs of £75,756.28 as of March to deal with her whistleblowing claim.

A similar request to the NDA revealed they spent £35,383.30 in the same time-frame.

Both Sellafield and the NDA receive Government funding for their operations.

They issued a joint statement on the case: “These issues are subject to ongoing legal proceedings therefore we cannot comment further at this time.”

Ms McDermott was approached for comment, but she told The Whitehaven News she would be unable to comment on the matter until after legal proceedings are concluded.