Mr Hichem Firjeni v The Secretary of State for Justice — 2021

Mr Firjeni was a trainee Prison Officer who failed Use of Force assessments during initial training. The tribunal accepted evidence that he had several attempts at the personal protection assessment and two attempts at the control and restraint assessment, received feedback, and did not meet the required standard. It found that the decision-maker's concern was his failure to acknowledge the seriousness of the assessment failures and the reasons for them.

On the harassment allegations, the tribunal did not accept that the specific word "knackerjack" had been used. It accepted that Mr Smith had made comments about Mr Firjeni looking like a sack of potatoes, carrying himself like a prison officer, jewellery, uniform and lateness, but found these were not out of the ordinary in the training context, were not related to race, and did not show racial motive or subconscious bias.

On direct race discrimination, the tribunal found that Officer A was not an appropriate comparator because his assessment failure was less serious and the surrounding circumstances differed. Considering a hypothetical comparator, it accepted that a white trainee who failed in the same way and showed the same lack of acknowledgement would also have been dismissed and not reassigned to an OSG role. The claims were therefore dismissed.