Employment Judge Sheils made the remarks in a ruling on a disability discrimination case brought against the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.

The claimant, who represented himself, had been instructed by another judge at a preliminary hearing as to the nature and contents of a witness statement, including that it should contain only evidence relating to the issue and not the parties’ submissions or arguments.

However, Employment Judge Sheils said the “factual evidence” in the claimant’s statement “was scant and the rest of it contained both submissions and arguments”.

“This led to the difficulty the earlier employment judge had sought to avoid which was the confusing meld of fact, opinion and legal argument,” the judge noted.

“It also led to the claimant adding to his evidence during his cross-examination that he had not included in his witness statement.”

Among the difficulties with the claimant’s evidence “was that he admitted to having used AI to assist him prepare his witness statement”, the judge added.

“The tribunal found this to be a very disturbing development as, by rule, witness statements are adopted as the claimant’s own sworn testimony.

“The claimant stated that he had used AI only for the analysis of the legal points but, as it transpired, AI unhelpfully got a significantly important case law wrong, which could have been seriously misleading the claimant as to his chances of succeeding in his claim.

“The claimant stated that he had tried to find the case the previous employment judge had referred to at the case management meeting but claimed that he had been unable to find it.”

The employment judge at the preliminary hearing had tried to draw the claimant’s attention to Dornan v Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland 2022 “to warn him of the difficulties it might present for him in his own case”.

The claimant had instead relied on AI which wrongly concluded that the outcome in the case was helpful to him.

The claim was brought out of time and Employment Judge Sheils found that the claimant had failed to establish that it would be just and equitable to extend time.

“Accordingly, the tribunal concludes that it would not be just and equitable to extend time in this case and claimant’s claim is dismissed for want of jurisdiction,” the judge concluded.