The Claimant applied for a job with the Respondent. He asserted that he had been offered and accepted a job as Refugee and New Communities Integration Officer. The Respondent asserted that no offer was made but the Claimant was merely informed that he was the preferred candidate in an ongoing selection process. The Claimant brought complaints of breach of contract, direct race discrimination, indirect race discrimination and victimisation in respect of the decision not to progress with his candidacy and of race harassment in respect of a comment allegedly made during that process. All of the complaints failed. The adverse view that the ET formed as to the Claimant’s credibility was fundamental to the rejection of all of the complaints. A key reason for that determination was the rejection of the Claimant’s evidence that the Respondent had offered him the job. The Claimant subsequently found an email which, the Respondent accepted, showed that he had in fact been offered the job. The ET dismissed his reconsideration application saying that the Claimant could have produced this email before the substantive hearing had he conducted a diligent search. However, the ET used this new evidence when it reduced the costs order that was made against him. The Claimant appealed.

The EAT allowed the appeal. The ET erred in failing to reconsider the liability judgment. If necessary, in circumstances where the Claimant had applied for reconsideration but the ET did not reconsider the liability judgment, the EAT would have permitted the new evidence to be introduced for the purposes of the appeal against the liability judgment. The liability and costs judgments were set aside and the claim was remitted to a differently constituted ET.