Ms A Rdesinska v Lidl Great Britain Limited — 2025

The tribunal found that Ms A Rdesinska was employed by Lidl Great Britain Limited as a customer assistant at West Hendford, Yeovil, and that the key workplace events arose after the 19 December 2023 incident with IO. On that date the tribunal accepted that IO put her hands on the Claimant's shoulders and restricted her movement while trying to direct her work, but it did not accept that IO used the racist words alleged or that the contact amounted to conduct because of the Claimant's Polish nationality. CCTV did not support the Claimant's account of grabbing, squeezing, or injury, and the tribunal found that when the Claimant complained at the time and in her 20 December and 30 December emails she did not raise a race-based allegation.

The direct race discrimination claim failed because the tribunal found that Mr Bean did not prohibit Polish-speaking colleagues from speaking Polish on 16 January 2024 and did not treat the Claimant less favourably by reference to nationality in relation to shift notices. The tribunal accepted that rotas were posted on the wall for all staff, that everyone received the rota at the same time, and that the Claimant's rota in early January matched her timesheet. It also found that changes to her hours and the shortening of some shifts were explained by the need to separate her shifts from IO's shifts and by the Respondent's staffing arrangements, not by nationality.

The race harassment claim also failed. The tribunal rejected the allegation that IO said the Claimant was a "stupid Pole" or used similar words, rejected the allegation that Mrs Jackson made a racially loaded comment when checking a Polish customer's receipt, and rejected the allegation that the 6 January 2024 welfare meeting and the 22 February 2024 appeal minutes were used to mock the Claimant's English or Polish origin. Although the tribunal considered that the 6 January meeting was not handled as professionally as it might have been, it found that any laughter was directed at the note-taker or at the speakers themselves, not at the Claimant, and that the conduct was not related to race.

The victimisation claim failed because the tribunal held that the pleaded protected acts were not made out. The Claimant's complaints on 19 December 2023 and in her 20 December 2023 email were treated as complaints about the incident with IO, not as allegations under or in connection with the Equality Act 2010. When she referred on 4 and 8 January 2024 to having reported the matter to the police, the tribunal found that she referred only to a physical attack and did not tell the Respondent that she had reported race discrimination or racist words. The tribunal went on to find that the alleged detriments, including the absence of a full-time contract in January 2024, the rota adjustments, the Crewkerne shift request, the Christmas party list issue, the recording of 4 January 2024 as unauthorised absence, the note-copy dispute on 6 January 2024, the 9 January 2024 rota correction, and the sickness-absence app entries, were explained by non-retaliatory reasons and were not caused by protected acts. All complaints were dismissed and no award was made.