The claimant, a black woman, was employed by the respondent as a manager, based in the UK until she was made redundant. At the ET the claimant’s dismissal was found to be as a result of a decision to retain another, more junior, white employee, based in Poland. The tribunal also found that the information and consultation process with the claimant was a sham. However The ET did not uphold her claim of direct race discrimination though the lay members found the claimant had suffered victimisation. The respondent appealed the victimisation ruling and the claimant cross appealed.

The President of the EAT, Eady J, allowed the appeal and dismissed the cross-appeal. The ET had adopted the proper two-stage approach to reach their conclusion that a hypothetical comparator would have been treated in the same way. As for the victimisation claim, the lay members had failed to take into account the ET’s earlier, unanimous finding that the reason for the inadequate and superficial investigation was because the decision to reject the appeal was pre-determined and as the discrimination complaint raised no separate points the ET’s earlier findings determined the victimisation claim.