Ms I Murnikaite-Afolabi v Atalian Servest Limited Heard via CVP (London Central) — 2023

Ms I Murnikaite-Afolabi brought a race discrimination claim arising from a security job advert for a role in St Albans that stated that the applicant must be from the UK only. The tribunal accepted that the claimant is a Lithuanian national who has lived in the UK for over ten years and had the right to work here. It also accepted that the wording in the advert was more likely to mean that the role was restricted to UK nationals, although there was some ambiguity, and found that the wording had been inserted by mistake by a member of the respondent's team.

The tribunal held that there were no arrangements which actually discriminated against applicants who were not from the UK and that no discriminatory decision would have been taken. It further found that, because the claimant did not apply for the role, there was no discriminatory decision taken against her. Applying the authorities it cited on recruitment adverts and prospective applicants, the tribunal considered whether the advert had deterred the claimant from applying.

On that issue, the tribunal found that the claimant was not genuinely interested in applying for the role. It noted that she was already working 40 hours a week in London, whereas the advertised role was for 15 hours per week, and found it unlikely that she would have given up her existing work for that position. The tribunal also noted that she made no attempt to query the wording with the respondent or apply speculatively, that she had previously been offered work by the respondent in 2019, and that she did not apply when the role was later readvertised in April 2023 on more attractive terms.

The tribunal rejected wider evidence about alleged preferential treatment of white staff and the suggestion that the claimant might have been discriminated against because of her African surname, which it said had no basis because she never made an application and the respondent would not have been aware of her name. The complaint of race discrimination was therefore dismissed, and no remedy was awarded.