Ms Bonsu v Anchor Hanover Group RESERVED PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2023

Ms Bonsu, a black woman from Ghana, had worked for Anchor Hanover Group as a home care assistant since October 2016. The hearing concerned the respondent’s application to strike out her direct race discrimination claim and, alternatively, to order deposits on 24 pleaded allegations. The claimant’s case was that the alleged less favourable treatment happened because she was not British, with a hypothetical comparator said to be a British citizen, and the factual background included the respondent’s right-to-work checks when her residence permit was due to expire and the later grievance about that process.

The respondent argued that the complaint was really about immigration status, which is not a protected characteristic, and that the claimant was conflating being non-British with being subject to right-to-work checks. The tribunal accepted that the claims might be difficult to prove, but, applying the strike-out authorities, it refused to strike them out because it could not say without hearing the full evidence that the direct race discrimination allegations had no reasonable prospect of success.

The tribunal nevertheless concluded that the claimant would likely face real difficulty separating immigration status from race, and that the asserted reason of being non-British was closely linked to the right-to-work issue. It therefore made deposit orders under rule 39 in the sum of £50 for each of the 24 direct race discrimination allegations, a total of £1,200 if the claimant wished to continue to pursue them. The claimant’s claims of constructive unfair dismissal, victimisation and holiday pay were not determined at this hearing and were said to proceed to the listed final hearing on 2 to 12 October 2023.