Direct Discrimination - Race

Here is a recent case decided by the Court of Appeal

In Leicester City Council v Parmar, the Court of Appeal confirmed that Mrs Parmar had been directly discriminated against on grounds of race.

Mrs Parmar had faced a disciplinary investigation with vague allegations. She claimed that her treatment differed from that of white colleagues in similar situations and brought a claim of race discrimination.

The employment tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal both agreed that the facts raised an inference of discrimination, shifting the burden of proof to the Council to show race was not the reason for the treatment. The Council failed to do so, and so direct discrimination was established.

The Council appealed.The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. In particular:

• The circumstances of the evidential comparators were sufficiently similar to those of Mrs Parmar to mean that their different treatment by the Council supported an inference of discrimination.

• The tribunal was entitled to draw adverse inferences from the Council’s failures of disclosure. They did not treat them as ‘automatically’ shifting the burden of proof.

• The tribunal had clearly considered whether the Council had discharged the shifted burden of proof and had found that it had not. The tribunal did not think that the explanations were credible. If the explanations were not credible, they could not displace an inference of discrimination.

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