in person For the v Respondent — 2024

The claimant worked for Slough Borough Council from 2010 and, following a 2020 restructure, his post and that of a ringfenced colleague were considered for a single Assistant Highways Engineer role. The tribunal found that the restructure was a redundancy situation for ERA purposes, but the claimant's dismissal was not automatically fair. It also found that the claimant and the ringfenced colleague were both Muslim and of Pakistani origin, and that both had been involved in Mr Abbas's grievance and the later recruitment-practices investigation.

On the discrimination claims, the tribunal rejected the allegations that Mrs Hothi manipulated the redundancy process, shouted and swore at the claimant in October 2020, refused a work-from-home request because of race or religion, or wrongly limited annual leave carry-over because of those protected characteristics. It found no credible evidence of anti-Muslim or anti-Pakistani animus. On the home-working complaint, the tribunal found the claimant had not shown a materially similar comparator, and on the leave complaint it found the limit to three days carry-over was explained by the respondent's general stance that leave should be used.

The victimisation claim succeeded only in part. The tribunal found that on 4 November 2020 Mrs Hothi telephoned the claimant, raised Mr Abbas's grievance, pressed him to reveal what he had told the investigator, and thereby exerted pressure on him to withdraw his support. It did not accept that she expressly threatened that he would lose his job, but held that the conduct was because of his protected act. By majority, time was extended for that complaint under section 123 Equality Act 2010, with Employment Judge George dissenting. The separate allegation that the later failure to appoint him to the Assistant Highways Engineer role was victimisation was dismissed because the respondent proved the decision turned on poor interview performance and a genuine misunderstanding of its selection process.

The unfair dismissal claim was upheld. Although consultation, redeployment and the interview exercise were broadly reasonable, the tribunal held that no reasonable employer would have included Mrs Hothi on the selection panel or in the decision-making for the ringfenced post, given the recent grievance findings, the mistrust identified in the SPM report, and the fact that both candidates had supported the grievances. The tribunal also found that compensation for the unfair dismissal and the successful victimisation claim would be assessed at a separate remedy hearing.