Mr C Jones, Solicitor For the v Mr S Hoyle, Consultant (Croner) — 2020

The claimant, who described himself as a heterosexual man of Congolese ancestry born in France, alleged that the second respondent failed to confirm an expected pay rise because of sex and race. The tribunal found that there had been no agreement to increase his pay in June or August 2018, and that the evidence instead showed a planned increase from April 2019 for a number of London staff, including the claimant. It also found that the second respondent did not oppose that later increase.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's sex-related allegations, including alleged repeated threats to fire him, an alleged comment about sex for a pay rise, and the alleged desk photograph incident. It found the alleged comments were not made, that the second respondent was not in London for part of the period alleged, and that the overall communications between the men were light-hearted rather than sexually harassing. Because the factual allegations were not proved, the tribunal did not need to decide the time-limit issue for the older complaints.

On race, the tribunal similarly rejected allegations that the second respondent called the claimant a thief, made remarks about Congo, threatened to replace him with another worker, or that Mr Colin dismissed his concerns in a discriminatory way. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had paid himself January 2019 salary in three tranches without prior written authorisation and found no race motive in the respondents' decision to investigate and discipline him. Applying section 136 of the Equality Act 2010, it held that the claimant had not shown facts from which discrimination could be inferred, so the burden of proof did not shift. The constructive dismissal complaint based on the same treatment therefore also failed, all claims were dismissed, and the remedy hearing was vacated.