: EA Farrell R Taggart B Chiwara v Virgin Media Limited — 2021

The claimant, who is of black African origin, worked as a Field Sales Agent. He complained that door allocation and other management treatment by Craig Clarke were unfair and race-related, and that his later suspension, disciplinary process and dismissal were linked to race and/or earlier grievances. The Tribunal found that the door allocation system used by Mr Clarke differed from the claimant's previous manager's approach, but was applied across the team, and that other team members who did not share the claimant's race were also affected by the same allocation issues.

The respondent's Fraud and Revenue Assurance team investigated accounts booked under the claimant's agent number after customer complaints about identity theft and duplicate bank details. Gordon Sneddon dismissed the claimant for gross misconduct after concluding that there were reasonable grounds to believe the claimant had misused customer details when loading orders. The Tribunal found that the respondent had a genuine belief in misconduct, reasonable grounds for that belief, and had carried out a reasonable investigation and procedure. The dismissal was held to be fair under section 98 ERA 1996.

The Tribunal dismissed the Equality Act claims. It found no evidence that race was a significant influence on the allocation of doors, the requirement to work in Govan, the disciplinary process, dismissal, grievance outcome, or appeal. It also found no PCP causing particular disadvantage to those sharing the claimant's race, no unwanted conduct related to race for the harassment claim, and no detriment because of the claimant's 2018 protected act for the victimisation claim. As no claims succeeded, no remedy was awarded.