Tribunal claim for NI Tory chair

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The chairman of Northern Ireland's Conservatives is facing a claim of sex discrimination from a former employee.

Sarah Adams, worked for Tim Lewis's companies based in Northern Ireland.

She made a claim to the Office of Industrial Tribunals on 25 November last year.

Mr Lewis's firm TLR Realisations Limited was put into liquidation while another Tim Lewis Consultancy Limited is now in administration. He is currently running a recruitment firm.

The tribunal heard on Tuesday that Ms Adams was also taking a claim of unfair dismissal, breach of contract and sexual discrimination against Tim Lewis Consultancy/Tim Lewis Recruitment.

It was reviewing Mr Lewis's alleged delay in responding to the claims made by Ms Adams.

A solicitor for Mr Lewis said the reason for the delay in his response was that although the papers had been sent by the tribunal on 7 December 2009, he had not received them until 4 January this year.

She claimed the papers had been addressed to Tim Lewis Consultancy and they had been received by the administrators in Birmingham.

She said they had been sent back to Mr Lewis in the Christmas/New Year period.

"There was no delay once Mr Lewis was aware of the matter, there was no delay in making the application," the solicitor added.

She said there would be no prejudice to the claimant if Mr Lewis's response was accepted "at this juncture".

However, she said it would have a "severe" impact on Mr Lewis if he was not allowed to defend himself.

The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Patrick Kinney, accepted Mr Lewis's response to the claims.

Mr Lewis was elected chairman of the Conservatives in Northern Ireland in May 2009.