Mr M Baah v Ballymore Asset Management Ltd — 2023

Mr M Baah, a gym instructor/personal trainer at Ballymore Asset Management Ltd's Royal Wharf gym, brought complaints of direct race discrimination, harassment related to race and victimisation. The tribunal heard from the claimant, Ms L. Gomes and Mr T. Walker, and applied sections 13, 27 and 136 of the Equality Act 2010. It also cited Land Registry v Grant, Richmond Pharmacology v Dhaliwal, Laing, Madarassay, Nagarajan, Bahl and Griffiths-Henry when addressing harassment and the burden of proof.

On the facts, the tribunal rejected some of the claimant's allegations as not race-based, including the change to weekend rotas, the allegation about the reception-area complaint, and the allegation about a team-wide comment at reception. It found direct race discrimination proved in respect of the refusal of paid time off for dental treatment, the comment to Ade and the claimant, the comment to a temporary member of staff suggesting the claimant's job would soon be vacant, the Portuguese racial slur, and the decision to follow the claimant and Ade around the gym. Those same events, together with the dental appointment issue, were also found to amount to harassment related to race because they were unwanted conduct that created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.

The victimisation claim succeeded because the tribunal found the claimant had made a protected act by his 15 September 2020 grievance email, and that Ms Gomes then treated him detrimentally by failing to greet him on 18 October 2020 and by separating him from Ade on later shifts because of the grievances. The tribunal did not find victimisation in relation to the refusal to allow a former resident to accompany the claimant at the grievance hearing. Liability was decided only at this hearing; remedy was left to a later hearing, and no monetary award was determined in this judgment.