Claimant v Grigorescu v Western Power Distribution (South West) plc — 2022

The tribunal dismissed all live claims and made no monetary award. It found that the claimant did not tell Justin Blundell in March 2020 that she had been the subject of sex discrimination, and that no document complaining of sex discrimination was sent between 21 July and 16 August 2020. The first protected act it accepted was the oral complaint of sex discrimination made at the grievance meeting on 31 July 2020.

The victimisation claim failed because the Taunton and Crewkerne recruitment decisions had already been made before 31 July 2020. As to the Training Support Assistant role, the interview took place on 3 August 2020, but the tribunal found the interviewers did not know about the grievance at that time and there was no evidence that the refusal to appoint was because of the protected act. The tribunal also found the interview scoring process was fair and objective.

The direct discrimination claims were also dismissed. For the February 2020 Team Support appointment, the tribunal found Mr P was not a suitable comparator because he was a long-serving permanent employee seeking redeployment, and it accepted that the claimant did not obtain the permanent role because of interview performance rather than sex. For the May and June 2020 Team Support roles and the July/August 2020 Training Support Assistant role, the tribunal found that the candidates were scored in the same way, that the claimant's scores reflected her answers, and that there was no evidence from which it could infer race or age discrimination.