In person. For the v Respondent — 2018

The claimant was employed as a security officer from 2010. The Tribunal accepted that his contract allowed him to be allocated different locations and assignments within his operating area, and it rejected his evidence that he had been employed on the basis of a guaranteed static role. When the PWC static site ended in May 2017, the respondent consulted with him and redeployed him into support/relief work, while also offering other work within the Cambridge area. The claimant said he should have been offered a permanent static role, redundancy, or a trial period like two other employees, but the Tribunal found that those individuals were not shown to be proper comparators and that the claimant had not proved facts from which race discrimination could properly be inferred.

On the race claim, the Tribunal found no discriminatory comments and no material basis for concluding that the respondent treated the claimant differently because of race. It held that, on the facts it found, a hypothetical comparator of a different colour or racial origin would have been treated in the same way. The race discrimination complaint was therefore dismissed.

On wages, the Tribunal held that the complaint for 18 July 2017 to 11 August 2017 was out of time because ACAS had not been contacted within the normal limitation period and there was no explanation making late notification reasonably practicable. It then upheld the later unlawful deduction complaint, applying the contractual position and the ready, willing and able analysis discussed by reference to North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust v Gregg. It found no express or implied contractual term allowing the respondent to stop paying him in the circumstances, and awarded £8,143 for underpayments calculated across December 2017, January to April 2018, and the final May 2018 element described in the reasons.

The Tribunal also dismissed the later wages complaint for 29 May 2018 to 28 June 2018. It found that after the DHL offer the claimant was no longer willing to work in accordance with his contract, that he refused to engage with the disciplinary process, and that he was dismissed on 28 June 2018. The free-standing holiday pay claim was dismissed for want of jurisdiction because it had been brought while employment was still continuing and no later post-termination holiday pay claim had been issued.