Mr Renton (counsel) For the v Respondent — 2018

The claimant, Mr Kwabla Gad, brought claims of direct race discrimination, indirect race discrimination, and victimisation against UK Power Networks (Operations) Ltd. The case was heard at Bury St Edmunds before Employment Judge King with lay members Mr R Allan and Mr A Chinn-Shaw. The claimant relied on race as the protected characteristic and said he had been disadvantaged in relation to promotion and training opportunities.

The tribunal found that the claimant had five recorded operational errors between April 2018 and February 2020. It accepted that these were mistakes or errors of judgement in a safety-critical environment and found that the stage A poor performance plan imposed in April 2020 was a response to that error history, not to race. It also found that an employee with a similar error profile, Marius, was treated in a similar way, and that the claimant's comparators were not materially comparable on the facts relied upon.

On the alleged denial of a full shift position in May 2020, the tribunal found that the claimant had not indicated he wanted to work full shift and had declined such work on previous occasions. It held that the decision not to offer him the position was therefore not because of race. On the alleged denial of 132kv training in June 2020, the tribunal found that the opportunity related to the EPN network, whereas the claimant was only 33kv authorised on SPN and had not shown that he was eligible for that opportunity; his performance record was also a separate reason why he was not selected.

On indirect discrimination, the tribunal accepted that the respondent's 132kv selection practice had become less transparent and had moved away from the written policy in some respects, but it found no group disadvantage to Black African employees and no causal link between the PCPs identified and the claimant's alleged disadvantage. On victimisation, the tribunal accepted that the claimant's earlier tribunal claim and his July 2020 grievance were protected acts, but found that the reasons for the PIP and the non-selection decisions were the claimant's error rate, his willingness to work full shift, and his lack of eligibility for the relevant network, not the protected acts. All claims were dismissed, and the tribunal recorded that it would write separately about vacating any remedy hearing listing.