Mr M M Ahad v Group Employment Services Limited — 2020

The Claimant, a Bangladeshi security officer, brought a direct race discrimination claim arising from three matters: a warning in 2019, the alleged failure to rescind that warning, and his dismissal after the 28 January 2020 incident at Selfridges. The tribunal extended time on a just and equitable basis because the dismissal letter gave a confusing service end date. It also noted that this was not an unfair dismissal case.

The tribunal rejected the warning allegation and the failure to rescind allegation. It found that the first warning remained valid, that the Claimant had not shown that the attendance procedure had been changed so as to erase earlier warnings, and that there was no evidence that other employees had warnings rescinded or that the Claimant was treated differently because of race.

On the dismissal allegation, the tribunal accepted that the Claimant and another officer, Peter Vlad, were involved in opening the main doors, but it found a number of procedural irregularities. These included the Claimant being told CCTV was available and then waiting before being told it was not, meetings being moved and interrupted, the Respondent relying on CCTV-derived conclusions while the Claimant was not allowed to view the footage, and the failure to investigate Peter Vlad despite an internal email saying that if he was partly responsible he should be investigated. The tribunal also noted that the purported final warning did not contain the dismissal warning required by the disciplinary procedure, and that dismissal was not automatic.

Applying section 13 and the burden of proof in section 136 of the Equality Act 2010, with reference to Madarassy, Hewage and Igen v Wong, the tribunal held that the cumulative irregularities were enough to justify an inference of discrimination. It found that the Respondent had not discharged the burden of showing that the dismissal was in no sense whatsoever because of race. The dismissal allegation therefore succeeded.