in person v Miss N Malik, solicitor — 2024

Ms A Ayorinde said she described her race as African and had been employed by Midshire Care Limited as a carer on a graduate temporary leave to remain visa. In October 2023 she asked the respondent whether it would sponsor her for a skilled or health and care work visa when her leave to remain expired. The tribunal recorded that she said she had initially been encouraged by the respondent's response, but there was then a significant delay before she received a definitive answer that the respondent did not sponsor workers in her circumstances.

The claimant's unfair dismissal claim failed because she did not have qualifying service. That claim was dismissed.

The claimant had also raised race discrimination complaints based on the delay in telling her that the respondent would not sponsor her, including the suggestion that the delay was deliberate to keep her in service, and the refusal to sponsor her for a work visa. The tribunal said she was unable to identify how those matters could amount to race discrimination, and the comparator she referred to was also African. It said the treatment may have been unfortunate or even unfair, but it related to visa status rather than race, and she had not identified anyone of a different race who was treated more favourably or any circumstances in which someone of a different race might have been.

On indirect discrimination, the tribunal said it could not identify a potential claim where the respondent was neither obliged nor potentially able to sponsor an employee into work. It therefore directed the claimant to show cause by 10 January 2025 why the discrimination complaints should not be struck out, and to particularise, within the pleaded matters, the basis on which she said there was direct discrimination and the policy or practice said to disadvantage Africans compared with people of a different race.