Mr Daniel Hart v Birmingham Neoglory Ltd and 2 others — 2019

Mr Daniel Hart worked for Birmingham Neoglory Ltd at the Amon shop in the Gateshead Metrocentre from 25 November 2017 to 3 February 2018. The tribunal accepted that he was at times acting manager after Ms Amanda Tilney left on 24 December 2017, and found that R1 was his employer. It also found, on the balance of probabilities, that Ms Karen Price and Ms Linda Zhang otherwise known as Linda Xiong were employees or agents of R1 for the purposes of liability under the Equality Act 2010.

The tribunal accepted evidence that R2 told the claimant not to disclose that he was bisexual to R3 because R3 would not understand, and that R3 asked whether he was gay and said the claimant seemed acceptable. It also found that R2 later told the claimant not to hire non-gay men and not to hire black or Asian people, and that R3 had also expressed racist views to Ms Tilney. The tribunal held that these remarks and instructions related to race, sex and sexual orientation, were unwanted, and had the effect of violating the claimant's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.

The tribunal found it unlikely that the conduct was done with the purpose of harassing the claimant, but held that it plainly had that effect and that it was reasonable for it to have that effect. It assessed injury to feelings as significant and in the higher part of the lower band, accepted the claimant's suggested figure of £5,000, and added aggravated damages of 40% because of the respondents' conduct in the proceedings, including difficulty tracing R2 and incomplete or misleading information. The award was £7,000 compensation plus £840 interest at 8%, with the respondents jointly and severally liable.