Mr S Hameed v NewDay Cards plc and 2 others — 2025

The claimant, Mr S Hameed, worked for Newday Cards Limited and moved in spring 2023 into a business improvement specialist role reporting to Ms S Allison. He alleged direct race discrimination in six factual allegations and later relied on his grievance and grievance appeal, both alleging race discrimination, as protected acts for a victimisation complaint. The tribunal set out the Equality Act 2010 provisions under sections 13, 27, 39(2)(d) and 136, and referred to Madarassy v Numora International Plc, Nagarajan v London Regional Transport, Martin v Devonshire Solicitors and Igen Ltd v Wong when explaining the burden of proof and inference of discrimination.

The tribunal rejected the first two allegations on the facts. It found Ms Allison did not ask a colleague to spy on the claimant's log-off time in May 2023, and that the teams chat relied on was taken out of context in circumstances where the claimant's working pattern was visible to colleagues. It also found no less favourable treatment in relation to the lunch-break issue: the claimant was required to work within the respondent's core hours and to formalise any change through a flexible-working arrangement, and the tribunal did not accept that race played any part.

The appraisal allegation was also dismissed. The tribunal found Ms Allison had initially rated the claimant as "good" and that the later "poor" rating came from the senior calibration process, influenced by feedback from Ms Sumner and another senior leader. It held that the claimant had not established facts from which race could be inferred as a reason for that outcome.

On the 2 February 2024 exchange about lateness and working patterns, the tribunal accepted that Ms Allison did berate the claimant and described that conduct as unreasonable, but it found that the treatment was ordinary direct management rather than race discrimination. On the 21 February 2024 holiday request, it found that Ms Allison refused the request for half an hour's holiday in order to leave early, but concluded that the refusal was driven by frustration over the claimant's working pattern and hours rather than by race. The tribunal said Ms Allison would have behaved the same way to a non-Pakistani colleague in similar circumstances.

The victimisation complaint succeeded only in relation to the respondent's handling of the claimant's sickness absence after his grievance and appeal. The tribunal found that, during absence from March to August 2024, the respondent failed to provide the usual welfare contact and regular absence-management calls, and that there was no real explanation for that failure. It inferred that the omission was because Ms Sumner was frustrated by the grievance and did not wish to extend pastoral care to the claimant because of it. The judgment records that the victimisation complaint succeeds to that extent, but the supplied reasons do not state any monetary remedy.