Ms J Paul-Christian v The London Borough of Haringey — 2022

The Claimant, who is of black African race, applied for a newly qualified social worker role with the Respondent. She was offered the role subject to DBS checks. After a DBS meeting about spent convictions from 1982 and 1983, the Respondent withdrew the offer. The Claimant alleged that the decision and related handling of the process were direct race discrimination.

The tribunal considered a detailed list of alleged discriminatory acts, including internal handling of DBS information, errors about the Claimant's age at the time of the convictions, the conduct of the DBS meeting, the decision to withdraw the offer, and later complaint handling. It found some errors or possible shortcomings in the Respondent's process, including a careless initial miscalculation of the Claimant's age and possible fault in how the meeting developed, but found no evidence that these matters were because of race.

The tribunal accepted that the Respondent's managers perceived the Claimant's behaviour in the DBS meeting as defensive, aggressive, lacking reflection and lacking accountability, and that this led them to consider her unsuitable for the social worker post. It found that the Claimant had not established a prima facie case that she was treated less favourably than a non-black African comparator because of race. The race discrimination claim therefore failed and was dismissed.