Ms Tricia Blake v Peter Laing and 2 others — 2024

The Tribunal, sitting at East London Hearing Centre over seven days in November 2024, considered claims by Ms Tricia Blake against her former employer Newham Community Renewal Project Ltd and two individual respondents, Peter Laing and Paul Evans. The claims comprised harassment related to race and to religion or belief, direct and indirect race discrimination, discrimination on the ground of religion or belief, victimisation, and unfair dismissal. The Tribunal held that incidents occurring before 3 September 2022 were out of time and that it was not just and equitable to extend time, so those parts of the claims were dismissed.

On the remaining matters, the Tribunal found that the discrimination and harassment claims were not well-founded. In relation to victimisation, the Tribunal accepted that the claimant had suffered detriment in two respects (the sharing of her grievance in full and the late provision of documents before the appeal hearing), but concluded that neither was because she had done a protected act, and so the victimisation claims were dismissed. The Tribunal found that the grievance and appeal processes had been conducted thoroughly and impartially.

On unfair dismissal, the Tribunal concluded that the reason for dismissal was redundancy: the claimant's Income Co-ordinator role had been created in 2019 to address a backlog of arrears, was extended through fixed-term contracts, and ceased to exist after her departure. The Tribunal also concluded that the third respondent conducted a fair redundancy process, including consultation and offers of alternative employment, and that it acted reasonably in treating redundancy as a sufficient reason to dismiss. All claims were therefore dismissed.