Member Dr S Singh Tribunal Member Mrs L Grime Mr A Muhammed v : William Grant & Sons Distillers Limited — 2021

Mr A Muhammed brought a race discrimination claim against William Grant and Sons Distillers Ltd arising from unsuccessful applications for permanent roles while he was employed on a fixed-term contract. During the hearing he withdrew the allegation that the failure to appoint him as Inventory Audit Controller was race discrimination and accepted that the successful candidate for that role was better qualified.

The tribunal found that the relevant complaints were the rejections for the Distribution Admin Team Member role, the Sub Contractor Transport Co-ordinator role and the Shift Co-ordinator role. It held that each rejection was a separate act, not a continuing act, and that the time limit therefore ran from each individual rejection. Applying Tyagi v BBC World Service and s.123 EqA 2010, the last complained-of act was in February 2019 and the claim was not lodged until February 2020, so it was significantly out of time.

On the just and equitable issue, the tribunal did not accept that the claimant only concluded at the end of his employment that race discrimination was involved. It noted that he had alluded to race concerns in March 2019, did not raise a grievance, forwarded emails to himself in November 2019, contacted ACAS in December, and still waited until February to present the claim. The tribunal also took into account prejudice to the respondent from the delay, including the absence of two potentially key witnesses and the destruction of some recruitment documents, and it therefore refused to extend time and held that it had no jurisdiction. The tribunal noted concerns about the respondent's lack of race-based recruitment monitoring and incomplete interview scoring forms, but said the case pleaded was not a challenge to the recruitment system itself.