Mr J Samra v London Borough of Islington — 2024

The claimant, who was employed by the respondent as a Community Partnership Officer and was dyslexic, brought complaints arising from three applications for a higher graded Community Partnerships Locality Lead role. By the final hearing, the live claims were six complaints of direct disability discrimination concerning alleged lack of support and non-appointment in those recruitment exercises.

For the first application, the tribunal found that the respondent initially failed to apply its Internal First policy but corrected the error, causing no disadvantage to the claimant. For the first and second applications, the tribunal found that the successful candidates were selected because they scored higher at interview, and that there was no evidence the scoring was influenced by disability.

For the third application, the tribunal accepted that the respondent was entitled under its Disability Confident policy to set a higher shortlisting threshold because of the size and quality of the field. The tribunal found no discriminatory motivation, concluded the direct discrimination comparison could not support the claimant's case, dismissed all live claims, and also found the first four complaints out of time.