Claimant v Respondent — 2021

The claimant brought a claim of direct sex discrimination arising from the respondent's response to an anonymous complaint alleging that he had inappropriately touched a female colleague, Officer X, at a Christmas party social event on 14 December 2017. The respondent investigated centrally, moved to a formal disciplinary hearing, and then upheld a finding of gross misconduct and issued a final written warning. The tribunal held that the claimant's complaint was not well founded and dismissed it.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant was subjected to the treatment he identified, namely the decision to begin formal disciplinary proceedings, the finding of gross misconduct by Gary Forbes, and Bozena Hillyer's decision to uphold that finding and sanction on appeal. It found that those decisions were made because the respondent was dealing with an essentially uncontested complaint of sexual harassment or sexual assault, together with concerns raised in the anonymous complaint about local management, and not because of the claimant's sex.

The claimant relied on Officer X as a comparator, pointing to events at a later bingo night involving Officer X and Officer Y. The tribunal found that Officer X was not a valid comparator because the circumstances were materially different: Officer X did not wish to pursue a complaint, Officer Y said any contact was accidental and nothing untoward had occurred, and the bingo-night events were a private social occasion between friends rather than a work-related Christmas party incident. The tribunal also rejected attempts by the claimant and his witnesses to undermine Officer X's credibility through the later events.

Applying the Equality Act 2010 direct discrimination provisions and the burden-of-proof approach in Igen, Hewage, Madarassy and Shamoon, the tribunal concluded that there were no facts from which sex discrimination could properly be inferred. It found that the disciplinary process, the gross misconduct finding, and the appeal outcome were all justified by the seriousness of the conduct alleged and the evidence before the decision-makers. The claim was therefore dismissed in full, with no monetary award.