Miss S Samuels v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis Heard — 2021

Miss Samuels was accepted to be disabled for Equality Act 2010 purposes, with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and Marfans Syndrome. She worked through Reed Specialist Recruitment Ltd at Walworth Police Station in the Criminal Exhibit Store. The tribunal found that the respondent had made parking adjustments for her, including permitting use of a disabled bay in the yard, but that she continued to experience difficulty because other vehicles obstructed the space and it could take time to have them moved.

In late May 2018 the respondent investigated underperformance in the CES and discovered that some staff were not working their scheduled hours. In the claimant’s case, three samples showed discrepancies between the CES logbooks and the hours claimed on her Reed timesheets on 31 May, 4 June and 8 June 2018. At a meeting on 19 June 2018 the claimant said it could take up to 45 minutes to get her car unblocked and that she never left more than 20 minutes before her scheduled finishing time, but the tribunal accepted the evidence of Mr Walker and Ms David that their reason for ending the assignment was concern that the claimant had left early, changed the arrangement with Mrs Price without telling her, and recorded times that did not match the hours worked.

The tribunal accepted that terminating the assignment was unfavourable treatment, but it held that the relevant discrepancy did not arise in consequence of the claimant’s disability. It found that the claimant’s actions in leaving early, changing the arrangement unilaterally, closing the CES before 5.30 pm contrary to instructions, and recording that she had worked to 5.30 pm were voluntary actions and not something arising from disability for the purposes of section 15 Equality Act 2010. The section 15 claim was dismissed, and because that conclusion was reached the tribunal did not need to consider whether the treatment was objectively justified.