Muhammed Shazad Nazieb v Moores Furniture Limited — 2023

Muhammed Shazad Nazieb started work as a Management Accountant with Moores Furniture Group Ltd on 17 January 2022. He was an Asian man, identified as British Pakistani, and was a Muslim. The Tribunal found that the finance team included Stuart Clements, Alex Evans, Jordan Jonas, Jack Askham and Luke East, and that the claimant was on a probationary period and was only employed for a short time before going off sick on 2 February 2022.

The Tribunal accepted that the respondent provided the claimant with a meeting room for prayer, agreed that he could leave early on Fridays to attend Friday prayers, and later indicated that home working on Fridays would be possible after probation. It also found that the claimant was placed at the available desk in the first office, then in the second office near Alex Evans, who was most involved in training him. On the evidence, the Tribunal did not accept that those arrangements amounted to segregation or isolation because of race, and it found no facts from which it could infer conscious or unconscious discrimination.

The Tribunal found that there were genuine concerns about the claimant's performance, the quality of his work, and the hours he had completed. It accepted that Stuart Clements and Alex Evans raised those concerns, that the claimant was told to build confidence and knowledge, and that the criticism of his bank reconciliation work was not shown to be related to race or religion. It also rejected the allegation that comments about Friday prayer, the holiday request, or the remark about the claimant's expected sixth child were made because of race or religion, and it found that the respondent's accommodation of the claimant's religious observances weighed against the allegations.

Applying the burden of proof under section 136 Equality Act 2010, and the authorities it cited on direct discrimination and harassment, the Tribunal concluded that the claimant had not established facts from which discrimination could be inferred. It found that the harassment allegations did not meet the statutory test under section 26 Equality Act 2010. The claimant's claims of direct race discrimination, direct religion or belief discrimination, harassment related to race, and harassment related to religion or belief were therefore dismissed. No remedy was awarded.