Mr J Johnson v Reed Specialist Recruitment and 3 others — 2022

The claimant, Mr J Johnson, a black man, signed up with Reed Specialist Recruitment in March 2022 and attended a paid trial at Bobbi Moore Academy. The tribunal accepted that there were communications on 11 April 2022 about emergency tax, but found the third respondent did not deliberately fail to ring him back. It also found there was no deliberate avoidance of his calls on 14 April 2022; the claimant had made repeated calls in quick succession, and the tribunal accepted that the person he spoke to on the later call was Ms Yeoman, not Ms Archer.

On the race harassment and direct discrimination complaints, the tribunal held that the handling of the complaint was poor in some respects, particularly the decision to let the second respondent investigate a complaint about her own team and the later contact from the third respondent after the complaint had been made. However, it found no facts from which race could properly be inferred. The third respondent was simply acting in her role as a consultant when she contacted the claimant, and she was not aware of his complaint at that point. The tribunal applied the statutory harassment test in section 26 Equality Act 2010 and the authorities it cited, including Richmond Pharmacology v Dhaliwal, and it concluded that the claimant had not experienced, and it would not be reasonable to find, the kind of dignity violation or hostile environment required.

On direct discrimination, the tribunal rejected the claimant’s comparator case. It found that Mr Tay was not in materially the same position because he was presented as a new candidate looking for work, whereas the claimant was an existing client waiting for feedback on a trial placement. The tribunal also found no basis for concluding that the treatment was because of race, applying the section 13 Equality Act 2010 reason-why analysis and the burden of proof principles it cited, including Igen and Madarassy, together with the Shamoon approach.

On victimisation, the tribunal accepted that the claimant’s complaint of race discrimination on 15 April 2022 was a protected act and that two of the matters complained of, the assignment of the grievance investigation and the later contact from the third respondent, could amount to detriments. It nonetheless found that those matters were explained by lack of competence, expediency and poor handling of the complaint, not by the protected act. It also rejected the suggestion that the school feedback had been concocted or that the respondents had influenced the school not to offer the Behaviour Officer role. All claims were dismissed and no remedy was awarded.