Mr M R Azam v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis: 3200501/2023 and Others

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 3200501/2023

Between

Mr M R AzamClaimant

Commissioner of Police of the MetropolisRespondent

Before

Employment Judge J Jones

Members

Ms M Legg

Mrs B Saund

Ms Ahari (instructed by Counsel) for claimant

Mr P. Martin (instructed by Counsel) for respondent

Date 24 October 2025

JUDGMENT

[1]The complaints of direct race discrimination are not well founded and are dismissed.

[2]The complaints of victimisation are not well founded and are dismissed.

REASONS

[1]In this claim the Claimant complained of direct race discrimination, harassment and victimisation. The Respondent resisted the claim.

Evidence

[2]We had an agreed bundle of documents. We also had live evidence from the following witnesses, in addition to their sworn witness statements: - the Claimant and from Zahir Asghar, Chief Inspector, and Peter Lingard, former Community Safety Operations Manager for London Borough of Barking & Dagenham; on his behalf.

[3]For the Respondent, the Tribunal had live evidence from: Jasvinder Kaur - Superintendent with Suffolk Police; Stuart Bell - BCU Commander for the East Area of London; Stephen Clayman - Commander, Christopher Byrne - Chief Inspector; Christopher Nixon - Chief Inspector; Andy O’Donnell - Chief Inspector; Martin Rolston - Superintendent; Lisa Butterfield - Chief Inspector, Mel Jenkins - Chief Inspector; Andrew Sanderson - Chief Inspector; Wayne Fermor - Acting Inspector; Lewis Watson - Police Sergeant; Chris Codrington - from the Operational Support & Events Support, and Leighann Robson – civilian Grievance Assessor for the Respondent.

[4]The Tribunal made the following findings of fact from the evidence in the hearing. The Tribunal did not make a finding on each piece of evidence but focussed on the evidence related to the agreed list of issues in the case. After setting out our findings of fact the Tribunal will go through the list of issues below, in the second section of these reasons when we consider our judgment. Delay

[5]The Tribunal apologises to the parties for the delay in producing this judgment and reasons. As we worked on this judgment in the summer it became apparent that it would be difficult to deliver the judgment and go through the reasons in open court as these are complex matters and it would likely take a whole day to do so. That is ultimately the main reason why the judgment was reserved after we had initially indicated that we were going to give judgment in open court at the end of August.

[6]The process of reaching this judgment was made very difficult by the Claimant’s extremely long and unclear witness statement, which is the document that should have clearly set out his claim. The Claimant relied on many real comparators in this case but the evidence on those comparators was sometimes scant and sometimes scattered across his witness statement and the documents. It took many days of the Tribunal members working together to piece together the evidence just on the comparators, before it could analyse the facts. The Claimant’s witness statement was not arranged in date order or in order of allegations, which is the usual format, and which would have greatly helped the process.

[7]There was also some delay in finding dates when the full Tribunal could meet to agree the judgment in this case.

Findings of Fact

[8]We find that the Claimant became special constable in May 2012 and joined the Metropolitan Police as a Police Constable in September 2013. Structure of Met Police

[9]Although the Respondent was the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, most of the evidence heard by this Tribunal was about the East Area BCU and accordingly, unless we say otherwise, our findings are restricted to that area. Some of the evidence about the ‘acting up’ process applies across the whole of the Respondent, although there were local variations. When we refer to the East Area BCU process, we will describe it as the local process. The Met wide process will be referred to as the Respondent’s corporate process.

[10]The EA BCU (East Area Basic Command Unit) covered the boroughs of Havering, Barking & Dagenham, and Redbridge. We were told that the Metropolitan Police is comprised of 12 BCUs, responsible for policing the 32 London Boroughs.

[11]The EA BCU has around 1500 police officers and staff divided into the following departments: - MiST (which stands for ‘my investigations support team’), Response, Neighbourhoods, Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Public Protection teams; with another team at Headquarters (HQ). Stuart Bell was the EA BCU Commander, with overall responsibility for the whole BCU. Previously, that role had been held by Stephen Clayman, who handed over to Paul Travers, who later handed over that role to Stuart Bell.

[12]HQ provides an administrative support function to the BCU. For example, it is where HR is based. We heard from Martin Rolston who as HQ Superintendent managed cross portfolio contact and dealt with a variety of issues such as attendance management, job postings, advertisements for posts and criminal justice. Officers in senior roles had their own staff officers assigned to them as personal administrative support, who would take action on their behalf, such as arranging meetings, sending emails or responding to emails.

[13]The Claimant is an Asian man of Pakistani origin. Although the Claimant described himself as also black in his witness statement, all the questions put on his behalf in the hearing to the Respondent’s witnesses were about their attitude and actions towards him as an Asian man. It was put to one of the Respondent’s witnesses on his behalf that there is a difference between being Asian and black and that witness agreed. We find it likely therefore that the Claimant considers himself to be an Asian man rather than black. Baroness Casey’s report

[14]We heard about this in the Tribunal hearing. In 2022, the Respondent appointed Baroness Louise Casey to lead an independent review of its culture and standards of behaviour. This was against a background of some serious incidents that had occurred, involving police officers in acts of criminal behaviour. The review began in February 2022 and was completed in March 2023, when the final report and recommendations were published.

[15]The review discussed whether the Respondent’s leadership, recruitment, vetting, training, culture and communications supported the standards the public should expect. It made recommendations of how high standards could be routinely met and high levels of trust in the Respondent could be restored and maintained.

[16]In her report, Baroness Casey stated unequivocally that there was institutionalised racism, sexism and homophobia within the Respondent, in terms of how officers and staff were treated, and outside the organisation, in terms of how communities are policed. She made many recommendations, two of which relate directly to the issues under consideration in this case. Firstly, that the Respondent takes rapid steps to end discrimination internally in its recruitment, development and promotion processes and in its internal misconduct system; and externally by policing all communities equally including with a reset of stop and search. Secondly, it should clean itself up by bringing in an independent team to run its misconduct system; introducing higher vetting standards and new end to end processes that stop those who are intent on abusing their positions as police officers. Acting up

[17]As far as we understood it, there were three ways of changing jobs within the BCU. An officer could be asked to act up on an ad hoc basis, if there was a shortterm, urgent staffing issue, or the officer could be placed on a select list after going through an acting up recruitment process and then be placed as an acting officer in a longer-term position; or an officer could apply and be recruited to a substantive post as a promotion.

[18]The Respondent regularly requires officers to ‘act up’ if a position becomes vacant and there is not a substantive, properly promoted person available to fill the spot or if, for some other reason, it is not yet treated as a substantive vacancy. In that situation, the Respondent would require someone from the below rank to act up in that position. Someone substantive may not be available for a variety of reasons, for example, the Respondent may not have enough people at that rank within the BCU and need to recruit more officers to that rank. Also, the postholder may be on holiday or off on long-term sick or recently retired; the Respondent may have taken the opportunity of someone leaving to consider whether it wished to permanently fill that spot with someone at the same rank, or whether needs had changed, and/or some other permutation of staff was required.

[19]We find that every officer in the BCU had a substantive rank. Acting up was only ever meant to be temporary because in most cases, although not guaranteed, an officer who is acting up has their substantive post available for them to go back to once the period of acting up comes to an end. Usually, the desire and opportunity to act up would only ever be to the next rank, which was of Sergeant or above. We were told that acting up could be done up to the rank of Commissioner.

[20]Acting up in supervisory roles needs to cover both the policing and the line management parts of the role. The Respondent had to preserve the chain of command as supervisors all have specific duties that need to be done on a daily or regular basis. Therefore, it was not possible to simply leave senior posts vacant, even for a short time. In the case of Inspectors, if there is no team leader to run teams or no line manager to support Sergeants, we were told that it could create a significant gap operationally in terms of leading people.

[21]There are statutory actions such as those exercised under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) and other functions relating to bail, police prosecutions etc that only certain ranks can take. Certain orders can only be put in place by an Inspector, which means that the Respondent must always have an Inspector or acting Inspector on duty. This meant that those positions could not be left without anyone in them when for example, an Inspector went on holiday or was off sick.

[22]According to Mr Bell, a formal acting up process was a relatively new thing for the Respondent. It had been created in response to complaints about the previous system which gave the impression that people were being handpicked due to favouritism and that decisions were not transparent or lacked rationale. The Respondent also recognised that for some, including those from ethnic minority groups and women, the pathway to promotion was often more challenging. A more formal process was seen as a positive development which would demonstrate objective fairness and begin to create equal opportunities for all. This confirmed Mr Byrne’s evidence.

[23]The opportunity to act up supported officers’ career development as it would provide them with opportunities for achieving experience, which they could use to support applications for promotion to substantive posts. One of the Respondent’s stated aims was to get to a point where its leadership looked like the population of London in terms of the ethnic and gender breakdown (see Guidance below). That aim had to be balanced with operational need and the minimisation of disruption. For example, if the Respondent had to arrange holiday cover for a supervisor, it would be impractical to take someone out of a different team, just because they needed that experience, replace them on their existing team and move them into the team of the person on holiday, to allow them to occupy the supervisory post for the duration of the holiday, which would usually be a short period. It was likely that this would entail too much disruption. We find that when the absence was only for short periods, such as a few weeks, the Respondent would not use the structured acting up process to fill the role but would use someone who was already on that team, who most likely knew the work, to act up until the supervisor returned. This would be referred to as an ad hoc arrangement. Sickness absence would also be covered by ad hoc arrangements. Ad hoc arrangements were meant to be for periods up to 56 days. This could be renewed if the situation was still not sorted by the end.

[24]The Claimant was opposed to there being this facility to allow officers to act up in this way as he believed that it frequently led to white officers being in positions for far too long, which denied others the opportunity to apply for those roles. However, we find that given the impracticality of moving someone from a different business group to another, for a week or for a few weeks, the ad hoc process made practical and logistical sense.

[25]It was necessary to have a local acting up process as the corporate, Met-wide promotion process, run by the Respondent’s HR, only ran at fixed points in the year. The local process was to create a cohort of eligible individuals to fill gaps that may arise during the year. As we heard in the Tribunal, those gaps sometimes occurred quickly and could not always be predictable or planned for. The BCU could then use the lists to select suitable Sergeants who could act-up as Acting Inspectors and officers for other roles. Following the review of the acting up process by Mr Byrne, in his capacity of lead for STRIDE, it was determined that the local process should also be done once a year, but in practice, it happened on a more regular, variable basis. In this case we are focusing on the process for appointing acting Inspectors. The local and corporate processes also included acting Sergeants (Sgts), which after the review in 2021, followed the same format.

[26]The Claimant was appointed as a Sgt in Redbridge Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) after becoming a Sgt in early 2020.

[27]In October 2020, while he was BCU Commander, Stephen Clayman conducted a meeting with officers across all ranks as well as staff members of the Respondent from black, Asian, and other ethnic minority groups. Mr Clayman did this because he became aware that some black and Asian officers in the EA BCU were feeling unfairly treated. The common themes brought up at the meeting were officers’ concerns that they were not given equal access to driving training opportunities or to opportunities to act up but were overrepresented in misconduct allegations.

[28]They met offsite, at a sports club to ensure the confidentiality of those who attended. Another meeting with Mr Clayman was held in February 2021. There was good attendance at both meetings. It is likely that the Claimant attended the October meeting. Although Mr Clayman could not recall whether the Claimant spoke at the meeting, we find it likely that he spoke about his experience in going through the process to become a Sgt and what he considered to be the Respondent repeatedly denying him opportunities to move to other strands, unlike white officers. The Claimant was not the only officer to speak at the meeting. No names were taken or noted on the written minutes that were produced and shown to us in the hearing. Mr Clayman informed the group that he was there to listen to what they had to say and that he would then go away with DCI Geoff Tachauer, the local East Area STRIDE lead to discuss any immediate next steps that needed to be taken.

[29]The meeting in February was referred to by Mr Clayman as a listening circle at which he endeavoured to provide the ethnic minority officers with an update.

[30]At the time, Mr Clayman was also the Chair of the Respondent’s EA STRIDE Board. STRIDE was the Respondent’s strategy for inclusion, diversity, and equality. There were various levels of STRIDE meetings held in the Met - from pan-London to individual BCUs. Mr Clayman conducted a meeting of STRIDE on 11 November 2020, shortly after his first meeting with the officers of ethnic minority backgrounds. At that STRIDE meeting the discussion was on the issues discussed at the October meeting. It was decided that the Respondent needed to question its processes, including those around acting up. They also discussed the issues of disproportionality in misconduct processes and the allocation of response driving courses.

[31]In or around April 2021, Neal Donohoe was tasked with looking at the existing local acting up process. He was instructed to look at putting in place a process that was both legitimate and fair, taking into account the issues raised at the October meeting. He was to report back to the STRIDE board.

[32]Around the same time Mr Christopher Byrne joined the Respondent as a career development lead. When he arrived at the BCU they had already begun reviewing their process around acting up, but the process still needed to be ironed out. Following Operation Hotton, Mr Byrne took the lead on developing the acting up/promotion process for the EA BCU, which was used as a trial site for the whole of the Respondent.

[33]Operation Hotton was the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) investigation into Charing Cross police station and the reported appalling conduct of officers stationed there. A number of recommendations were made in the report, including Recommendation 15 which stated as follows: “The IOPC recommends that the MPS (the Respondent) should review current guidance and policy in relation to acting up to ensure there is transparency and clarity on how acting up positions are decided. The guidance should ensure that decisions for officers acting up are recorded, and there is an appropriate balance between short-term business needs and its commitment to equality and diversity.”

[34]At the same time, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime gave the Respondent targets for representation of women and ethnic minorities at various ranks. Mr Byrne worked on the acting up process with Mr Zumeris, and HR. Once the Guidance was produced, he sought confirmation and agreement from the interested police officer groups, as well as the Police Federation.

[35]The Guidance was produced in June 2021. It opened with a confirmation that the guiding principles of merit, fairness and openness would continue to apply, in all recruitment within the BCU as within the Police Service. It stated that: ‘This guidance is primarily focused on selecting Acting Sergeant to Chief Inspector ranks and equivalent Police Staff bands and is intended for use up to 52 weeks and for longer term acting promotion (temporary promotion/ deputising for Police Staff) rather than short term ad hoc cover such as short periods of annual leave or courses.’

[36]The Guidance has been through a number of iterations since it was produced in 2021. The version produced in 2021 started with acting police sergeants and acting detective sergeants. The version we had in the bundle was focused on acting sergeants up to chief inspector ranks. It was agreed between the parties that this was Guidance and therefore not the Respondent’s policy. However, we find that it has subsequently been adopted across all 12 BCUs in the Respondent. This Guidance did not deal with ad hoc situations such as short-term absences, annual leave, or attendance at courses.

[37]There was no written policy that we were shown that related to the ad hoc situations. The Respondent would ask someone from the same unit to act up to cover for holidays, sickness or other ad hoc situations, for a period of less than 56 days. That could be extended in appropriate situations, if there was a need.

[38]The Guidance set out the following statement from the Respondent’s corporate promotion process as the reason why a formal acting up process was being devised: ‘The Met’s diversity ambition is to create a workforce that looks and feels like London. We will police better and have better trust and engagement with the public if we reflect the communities we serve. As part of the approach to achieving this, initiatives for focused developmental support are provided for Black, Asian, minority ethnic (BAME) and female candidates including provisions to support preparation for assessment’.

[39]In it the BCU confirmed that the questions that will be asked of candidates will be questions linked to the competency values framework, to ensure that everyone is graded against the same benchmark.

[40]The Guidance set out scoring criteria, agreed definitions of the Respondent’s core values, and a process for assessing and scoring candidates. Application of the Guidance would lead to the creation of a list of officers who were ready for promotion. Recruiting officers could use the list to select someone to fill a particular acting up longer-term position when they arise. This was separate from the corporate recruitment process which was run by central HR. According to Mr Byrne, the BCU needed to have a pool of officers that the Respondent could call on to fulfil a particular role without the need to run a formal process every time they needed to fill a vacancy. Retirement, long-term sickness absence, parental leave and attachments meant that there were gaps which needed to be filled on a temporary basis to meet operational demand. Running a formal process took time and incurred expense. Instead with these lists, whenever that type of vacancy arose, the highest scoring officer from the list, who had the appropriate skillset would be placed first, and then officers would be taken from the select list in order of score. They would also need to take into account skills and rank, as they could not place officers in unsuitable acting up roles. The Respondent’s aim was to have a documented pool of available officers for deployment through the LRPM.

[41]The LRPM is the local resource planning meeting, which was a hybrid meeting that was chaired by Martin Rolston in the period covered by this case. The main function of the LRPM was to post officers into critical roles. Each portfolio lead would attend the meeting and bid for officers to fill positions within their specific areas. The Portfolios would be looking after their own interests, which would sometimes require the person chairing the meeting to act as a mediator. Mr Rolston told us that that where portfolios were unable to agree, he would make the final decision, looking across the entire command. It was his role to monitor the vacancy ratio so that there was parity across all portfolios.

[42]We were told that the LRPM meeting would usually last a day and that there would sometimes be dozens of postings determined in these meetings. Attendees would be provided with a spreadsheet with all the vacancies, details of officers who had passed their promotion exams but had not yet been promoted and those who were acting up; slotted in so that the situation across the whole command could be seen. The decisions at the LRPM were taken with the budgeted workforce target in mind. Mr Rolston answered to the BCU Commander or the Deputy Assistant Commander.

[43]In the corporate promotion process, an officer would have to apply on the Respondent’s online recruitment portal known as Oleeo, which belonged to HR/MetPromotions. This would be for corporate substantive promotion and lateral transfer postings. That was different from the local EA BCU process although there was a need for line manager approval in both. Once the application was submitted, there would be a check to see whether that officer was excluded from promotion, for example if they were subject to a gross misconduct investigation or had unsatisfactory attendance. The application would then be moderated by a local moderation panel. If the officer’s score was high enough, the process would have moved on to phase two, which was an assessment centre, which included a structured interview and stakeholder briefing exercise.

[44]We are now going to make findings on each of the recruitment processes referred to by the Claimant, where he alleges racial discrimination and/or where it is his case that he should have been appointed. The dates referred to are the dates when the processes began. The acting up application process in February 2021

[45]We find that the Claimant applied for the post of acting Inspector covering Schools and Havering Partnership. The application was forwarded to Inspector O’Donoghue as the recruitment process was being run by him with Ms Jenkins. The role was expected to last for a few months pending the outcome of the Chief Inspector and Inspector process that was also running at the same time. The original application period was due to end on 15 January. The vacancy had arisen because Mick O’Donoghue, who was the Schools Inspector was acting up as a Chief Inspector.

[46]On 22 February, following Mr Clayman’s second meeting with officers from the black, Asian, and other minority groups, Mark Long wrote to all applicants to let them know that the deadline for the application had been extended to 26 February 2021. The Claimant submitted his application on 26 February.

[47]The Respondent wrote to the Claimant a few hours later to ask him when he would be available to attend a board, which we understood to mean an interview panel; to be held in less than a week’s time.

[48]Mr O’Donoghue also sent the Claimant details of the competencies that would be tested at interview.

[49]The Respondent interviewed 3 candidates in this process. They were Carol Weeden, Lisa Ryan, and the Claimant. They were interviewed by Mr O’Donoghue and Mel Jenkins. Between them they prepared the interview questions in advance. The Respondent was unable to produce the notes of interview as they were usually retained for around 6 months and then destroyed. Mel Jenkins’ recollection was that the Claimant was the weakest of the three candidates and that it was for this reason that he was not appointed. We find that at the end of the process, Lisa Ryan was appointed to the post of acting Inspector for Schools covering Havering Partnership.

[50]It is the Claimant’s case that the decision not to give him the role was influenced by his previous complaints. The Claimant had spoken in the meetings with Mr Clayman although as stated above, no names were taken at those meetings. Ms Jenkins was not aware that the Claimant had attended and spoken at those meetings. She had not met the Claimant before the interview.

[51]It was also the Claimant’s case that sometime later, in a conversation with Mr Hassan, Mel Jenkins said that she was unsuccessful in her application for a role in the mounted branch as the Respondent was seeking officers from underrepresented groups to join. She told Mr Hassan that she felt that this was ‘off’ because as far as she was concerned, ‘Black people didn’t ride horses’. Ms Jenkins confirmed that she said something along those lines to PC Hassan in an attempt to empathise with him about something he said during that meeting. We find it likely that this was something she said.

[52]At the time of the recruitment, Lisa Ryan was already a Sergeant in the Schools team and had experience of working with schools. Acting Sgt/Acting Inspector process May 2021

[53]We find that the Claimant applied to be an Acting Inspector by submitting an application through his line manager, Ms Hollenberg.

[54]The advert read as follows: “For those who are looking to develop themselves and seek promotion, please see the new process as devised by T/CI Neal Donohoe. This new process has gone through various officers of different ranks in EA based staff associations and STRIDE to ensure fairness, and to ensure everything has been considered. Interested officers are asked to complete the Acting PS and Inspector Application form, which is based on the MPS Competencies and Values Framework. Additionally, a 7117 equal opportunities form will need submitting. These forms should then be submitted and endorsed through your line manager. Every completed application form must be submitted to EA Mailbox - Acting Roles Application mailbox no later than 1200 on 28 May 2021. Submitted application forms will have personal details removed and be scored by a local panel. Officers who are successful at this stage will be added to the EA ‘Acting Roles tracker’ with priority given to the highest scores. Officers will be offered roles as they become available. If a role is subsequently filled, the officer will revert to their original strand.”

[55]A few hours later the following was added: “Further to some questions I have been sent, here are some answers: - I am afraid all those in acting posts will have to apply too. As I’m sure you understand, this whole process has been borne out of the need for transparency, finding the right people for the right jobs. Those of you have been acting will have the experience to write a strong application I’m sure. - You do not have to have a part 1 pass. It is desirable but not essential. Obviously this will bear some weight in the process understandably but should not put off those seeking development opportunities to apply, and as soon as they pass the exam, they will no doubt jump up the list. - …”

[56]This process was designed to produce a list of prospective Acting Inspectors and acting Sgts who could fill those roles, as the need arose. Scoring was based on applicants responding to several questions relevant to the Respondent’s agreed competencies, which were – we are emotionally aware, Values and Code of Ethics, we are innovative and open minded, and lastly, we deliver, support and inspire. The Claimant applied within the published application period.

[57]On 30 June 2021, the Claimant was told by email that he had failed the process, having obtained a score of 8, with the pass mark being 10. On 12 August the Claimant emailed Paul Trevers for support and feedback as he had missed out by two marks. The Respondent sent this on to Chris Nixon who had recently been appointed as the Claimant’s second line manager. They met on 26 August. They discussed the Claimant’s application form and Mr Nixon gave the Claimant feedback and advice on the type of work he should take on, to gain the experience that would help him in future applications. We find it unlikely that Mr Nixon had been part of the recruitment panel as he was first sent the paperwork in June, to update him on the process so he could talk to the Claimant about it.

[58]Mr Nixon had not been told that the Claimant had met with Mr Clayman to complain about discrimination in the acting process. Mr Clayman did tell him that there had been some complaints, but he was not aware of the details.

[59]On 26 October 2021, the Claimant was informed that he had passed his Inspector’s exam. The Claimant emailed Mr Nixon and Ms Butterfield to ask them for support in gaining evidence for promotion. We saw evidence that Mr Nixon tried to meet with him although contemporaneous emails show that they kept missing each other. Mr Trevers had also asked Mr Nixon to support the Claimant.

[60]Part of the process of preparing for promotion within the Respondent is for the officer to look for opportunities to achieve a positive result in appropriate projects to demonstrate that they are ready for promotion. We find it likely that when the Claimant met with Mr Nixon, he advised him on what could constitute Inspector-level evidence. Mr Nixon suggested that the Claimant get involved with some anti-social behaviour early intervention schemes and partnership problem solving work with the local Councils, which his team was already working on. The Claimant did so and was able to use some of that work to support his later applications. The November 2021 – acting Inspector process

[61]In November 2021, Mr Byrne launched another process to recruit Sgts who could fill acting Inspector and acting Detective Inspector posts. At the end of this recruitment, the Respondent wanted to create a select list of vetted candidates from those who applied. The applicants were firstly expected to meet with their managers to discuss their aspirations to act-up and then those managers were to ensure that they either supported the applicant by assisting them in completing the application form correctly or signposted them to where they could get appropriate help.

[62]In an email dated 5 November to all Sergeants, Mr Byrne stated that: ‘Those currently in an Acting roles will remain in role, however are strongly encouraged to complete this process as should they be displaced from their current role, (Substantive Insp/ DI posted into BCU) the select list will be the sole mechanism for filling future vacancies.’ Also, that ‘This process is designed to be open, fair and transparent, therefore all evidence will be assessed anonymously by a panel of senior leaders and will include independent oversight.’

[63]On 19 November 2021, the Claimant submitted his application, which was supported by Yasar Noori, his then line manager. In an email, Mr Noori told the Claimant that the examples that the Claimant put in his application were good for the level of Sgt but to make the application reach the Inspector level, he would need to: “articulate your thought process and wider scope through your shared practices and reflection that articulates that A/Insp exposure.”

[64]Once the applications were received, they were scored and then assessed anonymously by a moderation panel.

[65]The scoring process started with the forms being anonymised and then sent to two randomly selected assessors who assessed the readiness of each candidate and scored them. Mr Bryne wrote to the 8 Inspectors and Chief Inspectors chosen to mark the applications to let them know they would be receiving application forms to assess in pairs. They were asked to assess each application individually and then meet with their partner and come to an agreement on the final score.

[66]On 24 November, Mr Nixon was asked to mark two redacted application forms. His evidence was that his tendency was to mark applicants generously. He along with a colleague, were asked to mark forms from applicants 1 and 3. By the time they were sent out for marking, the forms had been anonymised, which meant that he did not know whose applications he had been asked to mark. Mr Nixon made his own personal score for each answer, which was marked on the document we saw in the hearing, and then he met with the other marker, and they agreed a final score. This could be more or less than what he had scored the candidate. For example, when he scored candidate 1 on his own, he gave them 8 points. This was changed to 12 points after discussion with his colleague. At the Tribunal hearing, Mr Nixon produced the documents that had been sent to him for assessment. The completed form was identical in substance to the form from Richard Oldfield, which we had in the bundle, which was only missing the line manager’s assessment and verification, which must have been added afterwards, just before the form was submitted. We find it very unlikely that Mr Nixon assessed the Claimant’s application form and more likely that he assessed Richard Oldfield and Nikki Hardy’s applications.

[67]Jude Beehag-Fisher dip sampled applicants 8 and 7, and Mr Byrne dip sampled applicants 10 and 5.

[68]The issue in the Tribunal hearing was whether the Claimant was applicant 2 and whether, as he alleges, his scores had been deliberately changed to a mark below the required pass mark to ensure he failed.

[69]The moderation panel met on 1 December 2021, chaired by Jude BeehagFisher. The minutes were taken by Jon Casey, staff officer to Mr Rolston who was chair of the LRPM. We heard evidence from Mr Byrne and Mr Sanderson, who were both listed in the minutes as having attended that meeting. We find it unlikely that Mr Nixon attended, although he was listed as having done so. There was a representative from the Police Federation at the meeting. The forms, which were still anonymised, were considered at this meeting. It was noted at the start of the meeting that the passmark would be 10. That meant that applicants would need to reach a score of 10 to be placed on the acting up list to be used whenever there was opportunity to act up in the inspector or detective inspector roles.

[70]We had the minutes of the moderation panel meeting in which all scores were discussed. The purpose of the moderation panel was to ensure consistency across the BCU and to agree the scores for the applicants, in a clear, transparent, fair and equitable way. The corporate policy stated that a moderation panel may be required to review all or ‘dip sample’ assessments undertaken by local/central panels, for quality assurance and consistency. The moderation panel should consider how the score was awarded and the rationale provided in relation to evidence. The panel would compare the answer with other applicants’ answers in the same group that is being moderated. The point of moderation is to rule out inconsistent outcomes that might arise from different styles of marking or different approaches from individual senior officers.

[71]In the meeting two points were flagged up for particular attention. Firstly, that applicant 3 would need to be discussed as that person had been assessed twice and there was a marked difference in the scores given to them (9 and 14) given by the two Chief Inspector pairings and secondly; that applicants 2 and 10 would need to be discussed as they had fallen below the required standard (10 marks) and would need to be offered feedback and support.

[72]Applicant 3 was the person who had been marked twice. Initially, Mr Mahmood marked applicant 3 and then realised that he knew the applicant. Applicant’s 3’s application was therefore marked again by Mr Nixon and Mr McElroy.

[73]The notes of the meeting show that Jude Beehag-Fisher asked to have applicant 3’s application put on the screen so that the panel could agree a score for that person. The form was still anonymised. Each Chief Inspector at the meeting was given the opportunity to assess each of applicant 3’s answers and a mark for each answer was agreed. At the end of that process, applicant 3’s score was agreed as a total of 11.

[74]From the final list of scores produced at the end of that meeting, the Claimant was shown as applicant 2. This is repeated at pages 465 and 466. The list shows him as having scored the lowest mark at 6 points. Richard Oldfield was listed as applicant 3 and recorded as having scored a total of 11 points and Shane Donnelly was listed as applicant 10 and having scored a total of 9 points.

[75]The only place where the Claimant was referred to as applicant 3 was at two places in the minutes of the meeting, at pages 471 and 473. As applicant 3 had a score of 11, they had passed. If that had been the Claimant, the minutes would not have recorded, as it does, also on page 473, that Mr Byrne and Mr Nixon should provide applicant 3 with feedback, learning support and guidance. The Respondent would not usually offer feedback to someone who has passed. It is likely that the person taking the minutes made errors by recording applicant 3 as requiring feedback, learning support and guidance. After that discussion, the minutes show that the names of the applicants were revealed so that they could discuss what would happen next.

[76]In his witness statement, Mr Nixon went through the Claimant’s application form and confirmed that if he had been scoring the Claimant, he would likely have scored him a total of 13 points and that the score would be different if it was for a substantive post. He also graded a few of the Claimant’s answers as being Sgt level evidence as opposed to Inspector level. Since no one scored 13 in the whole process, we find it likely that this would have been moderated down at the moderation panel. We do not know what mark that would have been moderated down to. Mr Nixon did not mark the Claimant in the November 2021 process and was not present at the moderation panel. We find it unlikely that a score of 13 for anyone would have remained after moderation.

[77]On balance we find that Richard Oldfield was applicant 3 and that he scored 11, the Claimant was applicant 2 and scored 6 and Shane Donnelly was applicant 10 and scored 9.

[78]Both the Claimant and Shane Donnelly failed to get the scores required to be put on the list. The panel discussed what should happen next in relation to Mr Donnelly, as at that moment, he was an acting Detective Inspector in CSU. Mr Byrne had already told all applicants in his 5 November email that those currently in acting roles would remain in those roles. He said that before he knew the scores.

[79]Shane Donnelly was acting up because he had been asked to step into an acting Detective Inspector role at a week’s notice as that section lost three Detective Sergeant’s to another section. Nikki Hardy was the only other Detective Sergeant in the process. It was also noted that if she wanted the role, she could displace him as she had actually scored higher than him. Otherwise, if she decided that she wanted to stay in the MiST team where she was already working, he could stay in the role as there were no other Detective Sergeants among the applicants. The conclusion was that Mr Donnelly would continue in his acting role, for the present, as had been promised to anyone who found themselves in this position and because he was needed.

[80]On 7 December, Mr Byrne emailed the Claimant to inform him that he was unsuccessful in his application to be put on this list. He was offered the opportunity to get feedback.

[81]In the spreadsheet prepared for the LRPM meeting in February 2022, it was noted that Shane Donnelly had been successful in the internal Acting Inspector process. This was inaccurate. None of the Respondent’s witnesses could explain the entry. It was not clear who had prepared this document for the LRPM meeting, but it was likely another admin error by someone working for Mr Rolston. Mr Byrne did not prepare this spreadsheet. The April 2022 acting Inspector process

[82]On 20 April 2022, Mr Byrne wrote to everyone to inform them that another process was open for applicants wanting to be Acting Inspectors and Detective Inspectors. The application was for those who were successful to be placed on a list for deployment across the BCU. The advert stated that those who were in posts did not need to re-apply. This was different to what had been said in the November 2021 advert, which was that those already in acting posts were encouraged to apply in case they were displaced by the process. We were told that these processes were always under review.

[83]Mr Byrne stated that although this process was to create a list, there were also two immediate vacancies – an acting partnership Inspector and an acting Inspector on the Barking & Dagenham SNT (Safer Neighbourhood Team).

[84]On 18 May 2022, the Claimant was informed that he had been successful in this process. He was now appointable as an acting Inspector. The Claimant scored highest, ahead of Matt Feather, which gave him first choice of the two roles. The Claimant chose the acting role at Barking & Dagenham. This was to be an acting Inspector while Mel Jenkins was on maternity leave. He discussed the two options with Mr Nixon, and they thought that this was likely to last until sometime in 2023 and therefore would give the Claimant the longest period as an acting Inspector. There was a dispute about whether he was told that it would last until the summer or January 2023. We find it likely that it was expected to last until at least January 2023.

[85]Mr Nixon emailed him on 20 May to offer his congratulations and to welcome him to the SNT. He was the Claimant’s first line manager in this role. The Claimant started in the role on 14 July 2022.

[86]The Claimant was not offered the opportunity to have feedback as part of this process as it is likely that the Respondent only offered this to those who had been unsuccessful at their application. Also, the Claimant did not ask for feedback.

[87]On 8 June 2022, the Claimant emailed Chris Byrne to ask about the acting Inspector role in the Professional Standards Unit (PSU), which Caroline Clark was filling. He wanted to know why that role had not been filled from the select list. Only the Claimant and Matt Feather reached the required standard in the 2022 acting Inspector process but the vacancy in the PSU had not been offered to either of them.

[88]We find that the incumbent in the position of Chief Inspector in the PSU, Mr Fish, made a surprise decision to retire, giving the Respondent a week’s notice on or around 13 May 2022. The Respondent did not have another Chief Inspector readily available to replace him. Mr Sanderson had worked before as the Professionalism Chief Inspector for his first year on EA, so it was decided that he would act up in Mr Fish’s role because he had some familiarity with the role. There was no process for that. The Respondent had to quickly find someone to act-up in that position. This was an ad hoc appointment and all the other appointments down the line were ad hoc appointments. The PSU does specialist work in relation to complaints. Inspector Tina Cooper was Mr Sanderson’s deputy, which means that she was familiar with the work that he had been doing. She acted up into his (Mr Sanderson’s) role. She was already in the department. Not every Sergeant would know the processes and procedures in the PSU. This was not to fill the permanent role. It was an essential role and one that required specialist knowledge. Caroline Clark had worked in the PSU role previously, having acted-up into Tina’s substantive role and therefore had some knowledge of the work of the unit so when Mr Fish gave his notice, the decision was taken to ask her to act-up into Tina Cooper’s role because of that prior experience and familiarity. We find that to put someone who had no experience of the work in there at that time could have caused delays while they came up to speed, which would have added to the backlog of work that existed. The PSU already had a backlog of work, and the EA BCU had a reputation as the worst performing BCU, in relation to complaints, in the Respondent. It was imperative that the persons who acted up had some idea of what they were doing. Otherwise, this could have been detrimental to the running of the BCU. Mr Sanderson confirmed that Ms Clark’s appointment as acting Inspector was approved by a later LRPM.

[89]The PSU runs the Respondent’s misconduct process locally. This is a quasijudicial process that is highly regulated. At the time there was no training available for the PSU role.

[90]Mr Fish’s notice was only given a week before his retirement on 20 May, which is why his role was not included in Mr Byrne’s list of acting vacancies included in his 20 April email inviting applications for the select list.

[91]In his response, Mr Byrne indicated that to ensure fairness, Caroline Clark would be required to apply for the select list on the next round, but she did not do so.

[92]By the time it became known that someone would be required to act-up in Mr Fish’s role, the Claimant and Matt Feather had already been posted to the two vacant acting up roles, in Barking & Dagenham SNT and as a partnership Inspector. There was a low take-up for this acting process, which meant that there was only the Claimant and Matt Feather on the list from this process.

[93]We did not have evidence about Kevin Reece being given acting Inspector posts even though he had not passed his Inspector exam.

[94]At their 1-2-1 meeting on 9 November 2022, Mr Nixon shared with the Claimant a copy of the evidence that he had used for his Inspector and Chief Inspector promotion applications so that the Claimant could see what a successful application looked like. Mr Nixon wanted the Claimant to pass the promotion process as he felt that he had done good work in his acting role. February 2023 – Corporate recruitment process for substantive Inspector

[95]The corporate recruitment in February 2023 required the applicants to apply on Oleeo as described above. This was for a substantive post.

[96]The Claimant’s application was marked by Mr Nixon, who gave the Claimant the highest score out of the 5 he marked. He gave the Claimant a score of 12.

[97]Mr Nixon did not mark Mr Biggs in this process. However, he did score Reshma Sher (Asian female), Richard Pollock (White male), Rob Simmonds (White male), and Matt Chatters (White male).

[98]The Claimant’s score was subject to moderation, along with everyone else’s scores. The moderation panel was chaired by Ms Jenkins and was made up of other Chief Inspectors, Mo Mahmood and Lewis Bashford, in addition to Ms Butterfield. Carol Wheedon was present at the meeting as an independent representative to ensure a fair process. We find that benchmarking was part of the moderation process. The panel reached a consensus in the room in relation to the moderation of each application. The Claimant’s score was moderated down by one point to 11.

[99]Mel Jenkins had the responsibility to submit the scores to be put on Oleeo (scores have to be updated by Superintendent leads). It was not her responsibility as chair to update the scores herself on the system. There were 15 applicants in total.

[100]We had the moderated scores from the process. Ten of the applicants found their scores moderated down. The Claimant’s score was moderated down by one point, from 12 to11. Simon Biggs scored a total of 12 points after being moderated. He had initially scored 15 points. Similar to the Claimant, Christopher Buckman scored a total of 11 points after being moderated. His score had been

12. Claire Grey’s score was moderated from 16 down to 13 and Richard Cunningham’s score was moderated down from 15 to 11. Jasbir Singh Randhawa’s score was moderated down from 15 to 11 and Joseph Seales from 13 to 11. Only one person was moderated up by one point, which was Darren Farr. Reshma Sher’s score was not altered as a result of the moderation process. Therefore, there were other applicants, some of whom were not Asian, who had their scores moderated down during this process, some by more points than the Claimant.

[101]This was all reported in emails dated 23 February, from Ms Jenkins to Mr Rolston, the LRPM chair, following the moderation process. She confirmed that Mr Rolston could override the scores already put directly into the system by Mr Mahmood, as he had entered his scores directly into the system.

[102]In the Tribunal hearing, Ms Jenkins and Ms Butterfield agreed that Mr Biggs’ score was changed from 12 to 13, on page 1633 and that it was different to the score reported on 873. They did not know why. Mr Buckman’s score was changed from 11 to 12. 1633 and 1594 are the application forms.

[103]However, even though those scores were different to what Ms Jenkins reported on 873 to Mr Rolston, the final scores uploaded to Oleeo were the correct scores and the same as those on page 1739, from MetPromotions. Those documents confirmed that Mr Biggs scored 12 and Mr Buckman scored 11.

[104]Ms Butterfield was the lead for the Neighbourhood at the time. Ms Jenkins did not copy her email to Ms Butterfield as she took part in the moderation exercise and would have known what the final moderated score was, so Ms Jenkins decided that there was no need to send her an email.

[105]We had conflicting evidence on this but established that this corporate process had not been anonymous.

[106]On 6 March 2023, the Claimant was informed that he had been unsuccessful in this corporate process.

[107]In April, Mr Nixon met with the Claimant to discuss the Claimant’s application and his final score as the Claimant had asked for feedback. In their discussion, they went through the Claimant’s answers and Mr Nixon mused that he could have given two answers more marks and at least one a lower score, but he reasoned that it was likely that if the Claimant had been given a higher score, it would have been moderated down as he was always aware that he marked generously and had previously been spoken to by several managers about this.

[108]When the Claimant said that he wanted to challenge the moderation score, Mr Nixon initially asked Mr Byrne to look at the Claimant’s application to assist him in challenging it but after thinking about it, decided to do it himself. As these challenges were taken seriously, it is likely that Mr Nixon put his reputation on the line by supporting the Claimant’s challenge to the moderation panel’s decision. This was only the second appeal he had ever supported in his career. He assisted the Claimant in preparing the challenge. The Claimant sent him the challenge form and he immediately completed his comments and on 9 March, forwarded it to Mr Bell.

[109]Mr Nixon was clear to us that he did not support the part of the Claimant’s challenge that there was not a clear rationale for the decision. However, he did support the part of the challenge where the Claimant contended that the panel moderating his score down was contrary to the SOP as the Claimant felt his scores should be moderated based on what he had written in his form and not because of a comparison with the scores achieved by others.

[110]The Respondent has strict criteria for challenging panel decisions. Page 1071 was the process for challenging the moderation process. Although Mr Bell referred to the SOP for the acting process in his witness statement, we find that he actually applied the correct SOP, which was for the substantive process, which began at page 1061. Under that SOP an officer appealing the decision regarding recruitment must be able to show clear evidence that their performance has been adversely affected by a procedural flaw or where a specific process or part of the process has not been followed (e.g. incorrect timings of an exercise). Where a candidate submits a case based upon their own assessment of their performance, this would be unlikely to be considered an adequate basis for review of a candidate’s result and such cases are therefore unlikely to be considered. There was no scope in the process for someone to challenge a score based on their disagreement with the score awarded.

[111]Mr Bell considered the Claimant’s appeal against the local HR guidance to moderations panels and the SOP referred to by the Claimant. As Mr Bell stated in his witness statement, the guidance stated that the moderation panel has to consider: ‘How does the score awarded and the rational provided in relation to evidence provided compare with other applicant’s answers in the same group you are moderating? How else can you benchmark?’

[112]Mr Bell looked at the basis of the Claimant’s appeal and concluded that the process had been conducted properly, which included the benchmarking. The moderation panel was an important and necessary part of the process. There was no evidence provided of a procedural flaw. We find that he applied the correct process in assessing the Claimant’s challenge. On 14 March 2023, Mr Bell informed Mr Nixon that the Claimant’s appeal had not been upheld and would not proceed any further. He asked him to inform the Claimant.

[113]We find that this was the likely impetus for the Claimant issuing his first ET1 on 14 March, alleging discrimination in the Respondent’s recruitment process.

[114]Mr Biggs continued as an Acting Inspector. He had not achieved the pass mark but was not displaced by this process. He was not promoted to a substantive Inspector, which was what this process was for. BCU acting Inspector Process March 2023

[115]As his post of Acting Inspector was maternity cover, the Claimant always knew that Ms Jenkins was expected to return to work and that, when that happened, unless he found another post to move on to during the period of her maternity leave, he would have to return to a substantive Sergeant’s post.

[116]On 13 March 2023, the Claimant wrote to Mr Byrne to complain about the number of officers who he considered had been given acting Inspector roles without having to go through a formal process. In the email the Claimant stated that he was aware that there was an Inspector process about to open up. Mr Byrne replied to say that he would raise this matter with Mr Rolston.

[117]In addition to bringing his first employment tribunal claim against the Respondent on 14 March, the Claimant also raised an internal grievance alleging discrimination.

[118]On 15 March 2023, the Respondent launched a process inviting applications from substantive Sergeants and Detective Sergeants who would like to join a select list of officers who could fill future vacancies across the BCU for promotion to acting Inspector positions, as necessary.

[119]The emailed advert said the following: “There are immediate vacancies across the BCU. Applicants who meet the required standard but not immediately posted will be placed on a select list for future deployment when vacancies become available. All applicants will be required to reapply after a period of 12 months to ensure opportunities are available to all and skills kept current. The application window will close at midnight on Monday 24th March 16:00 hours. LM’s please share with anyone on leave/ courses. We want our BCU to look and feel like the communities we serve, so we can continue to build trust and confidence, while ensuring that our leaders make decisions that take account of a wide range of experiences and perspectives. Applications are particularly encouraged from females, those from underrepresented groups and from those with a disability”.

[120]Unlike previous adverts, the email advert for this process did not say whether those who did not apply could be displaced by this process. The Respondent tended not to move those who failed to make the pass mark in these processes, especially if they had also passed their Part 1 Inspector exam. As the process was repeated annually, there would be an opportunity to pass on another occasion, as the applicant gained more experience while acting up.

[121]A few days later, the Claimant wrote to Mr Nixon and Mr Byrne to enquire whether he had to reapply as he had passed the acting Inspector process within the past 12 months. He also asked whether his scores could be carried forward, but the response to both questions was ‘no’. Mr Byrne responded that he was required to apply because he was only a few weeks away from it being 12 months since he last applied and because 12 months would have lapsed by the time the application was assessed. He felt that this ensured fairness and that everyone was treated in the same way. The Claimant was not happy about this. Mr Nixon had also raised this with Mr Rolston on the Claimant’s behalf. He was given the same answer.

[122]However, and at the end of the process, after talking to other officers, the senior managers realised that the advert had not been as clear as they had hoped as hardly anyone had applied. Management became aware of discussions between officers which showed that there was some confusion about what it meant. As it was written in future tense, officers were confused as to whether it meant that those who were in acting roles did not need to re-apply for the next twelve months. Some, as the Claimant did, seemed to take it to mean that if you applied within 12 months of your last application, you were not required to complete a formal application on this occasion. Mr Byrne intended the advert to say that individuals only needed to re-apply if they had not been successful in an acting Inspector process in the last 12 months but that was not what it said. Most of the acting Inspectors did not think that they needed to apply which meant that the Respondent did not have sufficient applicants.

[123]On 11 May, Mr Rolston tasked Mr Byrne and Mr Sanderson to come up with a fair solution to this issue. They decided that the fairest option would be to leave things as they were and allow those in acting roles to continue; and to make adverts clearer in future. This meant that all incumbent acting Inspectors would be left in post, if they had passed the exam and the application stage of the current promotion process and had their SLT lead’s support to remain; or they had been performing well in the role, as reflected by a current PDR, were actively pursuing promotion, and had their SLT lead’s support to remain. Everyone would be put on the select list. Subsequent adverts would make it clear that those who were in acting roles would need to re-apply. The Respondent did not tell the acting Inspectors of this decision. It is likely that the applications, including the Claimant’s, had already been submitted by the time the Respondent came to this decision.

[124]Mr Nixon looked at the Claimant’s application before he submitted it, to support him. He gave the Claimant some feedback as to how he could make more of the examples he had used.

[125]This process was anonymised and the senior officers marking the applications were not aware of the names or other details of the applicants. The Claimant was assessed by Tom Smith and Gordon Henderson and the marks were subject to a moderation panel, which had a Police Federation Representative on it. The maximum score he could have got was 15.

[126]Mr Nixon marked Matt Graham’s application and looking at the application form on pages 703 – 807, he gave him a score of 6. The Claimant achieved the pass mark of 9, which meant that he successfully passed the process. Mel Jenkins’ evidence was that the pass mark was 11 but we find from Mr Byrne’s contemporaneous email, that it was 9. Simon Biggs scored 7. Although he passed, the Claimant was aggrieved because he had been made to re-apply and his score from the previous process was not carried over. He had applied for a similar position on a select list, less than 12 months earlier.

[127]On 9 May 2023, Mr Byrne emailed the Claimant to inform him that he had been successful in the process. He told the Claimant that successful applicants would be posted as part of the LRPM process and that this would be done in order of score. However, those who had passed their Inspector exam would also be given priority.

[128]We had handwritten minutes of the subsequent LRPM meeting held on 17 May 2023. The minutes show a structured approach to the discussion about the scores and the outcome of the recruitment process. It was decided that all those who had failed to achieve the pass mark but were in acting up posts, would remain. This applied to Chris Buckman, Simon Biggs, Matt Graham and Darren Farr. This was in keeping with the proposal from Mr Sanderson and Mr Byrne in May due to the confusion created by the ambiguous advert. That decision had been made before the scores had been collated.

[129]Mr Rolston stated that applicants should be told that if they are successful in getting on to the select list, they would not always get the posting of their choosing. Being on the list could provide development opportunities when officers are moved into different portfolios, according to the needs of the BCU.

[130]The discussion in the meeting then took each applicant in order of the highest to lowest score. The meeting first discussed Sam Horvath who had scored higher in the process (12) but did not have the Part 1 Inspector exam. They then discussed the job that would be offered to Reshma Sher as she scored second highest. She was eventually offered the acting Inspector role at Redbridge. Redbridge was not recorded in these minutes but that was where she was eventually posted. The meeting then moved on to discuss the Claimant and two others as they all achieved the same score. The Claimant had passed his Part 1 Inspector exam, so he was discussed first out of the three. It was decided that he would be offered the EA400 role. This was a role that the Claimant had acted up into before.

[131]The EA400 role was based in the control/operations room for the BCU. This is the control room for all three boroughs. It is a central point whereby anyone in the Respondent can contact the BCU and speak to a senior officer. It was always operational, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. We find that the EA400 was an important and pivotal role and the person who filled it would need to know where all the BCU’s resources were at any given moment in case they needed to mobilise them. The postholder would deal with any emails coming into the BCU, prioritise resources, and deal with urgent mental health calls as well as missing person calls. There needed to always be an EA400 on duty and anyone in that post would need to be able to do early, late or night shifts unless there were adjustments made for them.

[132]When Mr Sanderson called him to offer him the EA400 role, the Claimant was not down on CARMs as having any restrictions or needing any adjustments. Mr Sanderson and the LRPM’s expectation were that the Claimant would be able to take up the role. It was the Claimant who raised that he would have an issue with working night shifts due to the medication that he was on. The LRPM did not have a record of his adjustments in the meeting when they discussed his suitability for this acting role. Mr Sanderson agreed that this may be a difficulty. The Claimant did not enquire whether there could be any adjustments to the role to accommodate his needs. Mr Sanderson advised the Claimant to put a note on the system that he had difficulty with working night shifts, in case the Claimant was asked to be on duty for large scale events such as a coronation. There was an was exchange of emails between them confirming their discussion. Mr Sanderson stated in his email that the Claimant could not do the Ops room role if he could only do early turn shifts. The Claimant recorded in his email that it was Mr Sanderson who stated that it was not a suitable role for the Claimant based on his current restrictions, but we find it likely that it was the Claimant who said this. The result of their exchange was that the Claimant did not take up the Ops room role. Mr Sanderson wrote to the Claimant later that day to confirm that he would remain on the select list and be posted as soon as a suitable acting Inspector position came up.

[133]On reflection, when he was asked by Ms Cormack during her investigation of the Claimant’s grievance, Mr Sanderson stated that he felt that as the Ops room already had another Inspector who could not do night duties, it would have been difficult to operate with another. That was his personal opinion. The situation had not been subject to assessment or OH advice as the Claimant had not accepted the role. The Claimant could only do early shifts, which would likely have meant having to cover two thirds of his shifts, which Mr Sanderson felt would likely have been an unreasonable burden on its resources. However, this was not something he told the Claimant when they discussed it on 17 May.

[134]On 26 May 2023, Sam Horvath was offered the EA400 role, which he accepted.

[135]On 27 June Mr Sanderson emailed the Claimant to check whether his restrictions were still the same as he thought that there was another EA400 vacancy coming up and the Claimant was next in line. This was another opportunity for the Claimant to accept it. They discussed it and the Claimant confirmed that his restrictions were the same and that he did not anticipate them changing.

[136]The Claimant compared himself with Darren Farr, Matthew Graham and Matt Feather and contends that they were posted to acting Inspector positions without having to go through an application process. The Claimant believed that Darren Farr had not applied in the acting Inspector process in early 2021 but that he had been posted as an acting Inspector in the response team in that year. In November 2021, Mr Farr applied and passed the acting Inspector process. He also re-applied in February 2023. The Claimant also believed that the same happened with Matthew Graham who was posted to act up in the EA400 role in 2021. He had not applied for the acting up Inspector position in May 2021, but he had applied in November 2021 and passed. He re-applied in the corporate process in February 2023 but did not apply in local process in March 2023 and continued to act up in the role. They both continued to act up in March 2023 because of the decision reached because of the unclear advert. This meant that they were allowed to continue in post.

[137]Matt Feather had passed the acting Inspector process in May 2022, at the same time as the Claimant. He had been posted as Partnership Acting Inspector. In March 2023, he told the Claimant that he was not going to apply in the latest process as he was under investigation for some misconduct allegations. While the application process was open, senior officers encouraged Mr Feather to apply. It is likely that the Respondent wanted to ensure that all eligible officers took part in the process. The Respondent did not want to have officers in acting roles, who had no intention of being promoted. This would have applied to both the Claimant and Mr Feather. He applied but was unsuccessful, and he remained in his post. Again, this was partly the effect of the decision taken by the Respondent to allow everyone to remain in post because of the unclear advert. Also, there were issues related to the substantive postholder, Louise Jackson, which the Claimant was not privy to, which meant that it was appropriate for Mr Feather to be left acting for a period.

[138]As far as the Tribunal could see, no officer who failed the acting up process was ever removed from their role. No one was displaced or swapped out. The discussion in the meeting in 2022 about Simon Biggs’ future, once it was known that he had failed the process, was instructive. On that occasion, the issue for the senior leadership team was how best to support a senior officer when he failed the application process but was performing well in the job and there was likely to be the opportunity to pass, on the next occasion, in the following year. As Mr Rolston stated in the LRPM meeting, acting roles were development roles. The Respondent left the actors in the role, with the hope that on the next occasions they either passed, or they successfully applied for the Met-wide corporate process or were promoted to a substantive role.

[139]In the interim, the Claimant had not been forgotten as the Respondent was actively trying to find him an acting Inspector role that would suit him.

[140]The Claimant also could not do the VSU (violence suppression unit) acting Inspector role, due to the need for the postholder to work night shifts. The Claimant did not challenge Mr Rolston’s explanation of how Jasbir Randhawa came to be offered the VSU acting Inspector role. On 5 June 2023, Annette Smith on behalf of acting Chief Inspector Bertie emailed Mr Sanderson querying whether PS Jasbir Randhawa could act up as a VSU Inspector. Mr Sanderson stated that if it was a uniformed role, as opposed to a detective role, then there was a select list created following the recent acting Inspector process and the role should be offered to the next person on the list. As it was not considered a specialist role, Mr Rolston then advised that the role would need to be brought to the next LRPM, where someone could be appointed from the select list. As LRPMs only happen every few months, Mr Randhawa would continue to act up in the meantime.

[141]The VSU would usually carry out arrest enquiries for high harm offenders on the early shift and proactive patrol of pre-determined priority locations on late shifts. These proactive patrols were designed to disrupt robberies and serious youth violence. This would include stop and search and conducting arrests among some of the most violent young men in London who are often armed, and on the street or in vehicles in groups. Whoever took on this role would need to be able to conduct effective supervision of their team and the Inspector’s presence was crucial to its smooth operation. It was Mr Sanderson’s evidence that this unit was the first option for a spontaneous public order incident on the BCU. Standard public order deployment usually required an Inspector’s presence. The VSU’s Inspector would also be required to do late shifts and go out with their team and with his restrictions, the Claimant would not have been able to do either.

[142]The Claimant wrote to Mr Byrne on 18 May to challenge him about the decisions made at the LRPM in respect of: - the Inspector role at Havering, acting Inspector Matt Feather being left in the Partnership post despite not having passed the Inspector exam and not having applied in the current process, and Matt Graham and Darren Farr being confirmed as acting Inspectors even though they had decided not to apply in the current process. He also complained that Ms Butterfield had telephoned Reshma Sher to ask about her posting preferences but had not called him. Lastly, he complained in the email that the Respondent had not offered him any adjustments to make it possible for him to do the EA400 job.

[143]In response, Mr Byrne confirmed that there had been some issues with the wording of the advert which meant that Mr Rolston decided to leave the current actors in their posts. He answered all the other issues the Claimant raised. In his evidence to the Tribunal, Mr Sanderson agreed that this had been a badly launched process and as far as he was concerned, showed more incompetence than conspiracy.

[144]In October 2023, Mr Sanderson emailed the Claimant again for an update on his restricted duties, as there was likely to be an acting Inspector position opening. He reminded the Claimant that he was the next on the list. The Claimant replied to say that he was waiting for an Occupational Health appointment. The Claimant asked about other roles that might have become available but was told that the NPT role had been advertised as a substantive Inspector post and was therefore not suitable for acting up and the role at HQ was also being done by a substantive Inspector. Acting process October 2024

[145]On 1 October 2024, Mr Sanderson wrote to all Sergeants on the BCU to launch an acting Inspector and acting Detective Inspector process. He informed them that the 2023 select list would be closing down and that a new list would be launched in 2024, following this process. He stated that: “Please note that I have made it easier this year for those on the selection list, and those already acting up, to remain without having to make a full application. However, in those cases, an endorsement is required. See below for further details. Applications are therefore welcome from those wishing to be an Acting Insp or Acting DI. Only substantive PSs and substantive DSs may apply. Please do not apply if you are not willing to move teams. It may be that some acting ranks remain on their team, but in general, this will not be the case.”

[146]He confirmed in an email exchange that the Claimant had been endorsed as still on the list. The Claimant was therefore not required to re-apply.

[147]It is also likely that the Claimant’s restrictions still applied. Corporate Inspector process in 2024

[148]The Claimant applied for promotion in the corporate process in 2024. He asked for his application to be scored and moderated outside of the BCU. Mr Bell agreed.

[149]The Claimant’s application was anonymised and placed in another BCU’s moderation panel. He was unsuccessful in this process. Mr Bell supported the Claimant’s request to challenge this decision and forwarded his appeal. He had supported less than 5 such challenges in his career as a senior officer. Out of those, only 1 had been successful. The Claimant’s challenge failed.

[150]We will now set out our findings of fact on the other matters contained in the list of issues in this case. Mr Codrington 26 and 27 December 2022

[151]The Claimant made complaint about Mr Chris Codrington, a member of staff within the BCU, who he described as white. Mr Codrington is not white. He is Black British, of dual heritage from Northern Ireland.

[152]Mr Codrington works in the Operational Support and Events Team. His role in dealing with Inspector duties is to make sure that all Inspectors across EA BCU are marked up, that is, clearly showing their call sign on the CARMs system. CARMs is the Respondent’s computer aided resource management system. It shows people’s roles and whereabouts on a day-to-day basis, including if they are warned for aid, attending training, on annual leave or simply on normal shifts. Mr Codrington’s role is to ensure that everyone has a specific posting, every day.

[153]Mr Codrington was not aware that the Claimant and other black and ethnic minority officers had met with Mr Clayman in October 2020 and February 2021 to complain about discrimination. He was also not aware that the Claimant had emailed Mr Byrne on 13 March 2023, in which he complained of preferential treatment being given to some officers, based on race.

[154]In terms of Inspector roles, there was usually the EA400 role and in addition, three duty Inspectors, one for each Borough across the BCU. Mr Codrington’s role was to ensure that the three duty Inspectors had their postings, jobs, appointments, meetings, and duties all posted on CARMs, a month or two in advance so that they knew what they were doing and things like annual leave could be managed and planned for. He described it to us as a bit of a jigsaw puzzle.

[155]He would often have to use Sergeants or an ‘In Frame’ Inspector to jump in and cover these crucial roles if there was ever a time when a gap appeared. He had to make sure and check every day that nothing had changed for the week or month ahead and if something had changed, then he would have to backfill the role if required. 156. ‘In Frame’ was a term used to describe an Inspector who is not permanently posted as EA400 or on the emergency response and patrol team (ERPT) but who is available to fulfil any deficits in essential roles, whether that be for aid, as a duty officer, ERPT or EA400. In Frames are usually Inspectors in a neighbourhood policing team, or other areas of Headquarters or CID. Usually, the In Frame Inspector would be used on weekends, as that is when there is usually a higher demand, or officers have asked for leave. That means that if an In Frame Inspector is on a rest day, that rest day can be cancelled to cover EA400 and ERPT functions. Each In Frame Inspector tends to get a week or two weeks’ notification if they are required to cover a shift but if it is during their In Frame week, the notification can be on the day or a day in advance.

[157]Mr Codrington’s role was to create a list of Inspectors available to be ‘In Frame’ and set a rota so that Inspectors rotate and know in advance when their ‘In Frame’ weeks will be. He told us that when the need for an Inspector arises, he would usually approach the ‘In Frame’ Inspector first to ask them to cover the shift.

[158]AID is a reference to a need for more police officers than usual because there is a need to assist at a particular event or occasion. Local AID is sometimes necessary where there is an event such as a protest, which would need additional resources. The Respondent can also organise AID centrally for large scale events such as the Queen’s funeral. The request for officers for central AID will specify how many officers of each rank the BCU had to provide for that AID. Officers will then be ‘warned’ for AID, which advises them of where they will need to be and who to report to for that particular duty.

[159]On 6 December 2022, the Claimant asked Mr Codrington to amend his CARMs for 26 and 27 December. He had already approached a response team Inspector, Tom Watson to cover his shifts on those days. At the time the Claimant was an acting Inspector at Barking & Dagenham Safer Neighbourhoods team. Mr Watson was a substantive Inspector.

[160]Mr Codrington responded that he could not agree the swap as the SLT (Senior Leadership Team) would not approve it. The Respondent already had a substantive Inspector posted for those dates. As the Claimant was not a substantive Inspector, he would be entitled to double pay if he worked bank holidays. As a substantive Inspector, Tom Watson would not be so entitled as he is salaried at a different rate. His refusal to agree the swap was due to the additional cost to the Respondent and because it was his job to do so as the administrator responsible for managing the CARMs postings, with responsibility to make efficiency savings for the taxpayer.

[161]The Claimant was unhappy about Mr Codrington’s decision and referred the matter to Inspector Nick Sutton who confirmed that although it was natural that the substantive Inspectors would be glad to be able to swap their shifts on dates around Christmas time, that did not mean that it justified the extra costs that this swap would entail. Mr Sutton suggested that if the Claimant wanted to work overtime over the holidays, he could consider the alternative dates offered by Mr Codrington in his email. He reiterated that this was about costs and confirmed that Mr Codrington’s actions were correct.

[162]Although previously the Claimant had been able to get agreement to a swap on Christmas Day with Mr Ashgar, that did not mean that it had not been an issue or that such a swap should always be agreed. That swap had been agreed because it helped the Respondent with another officer’s attendance.

[163]We find that Mr Codrington’s job is not to just look at the desires/needs of one officer. He and the team at HQ must look at the whole picture, factor in the costs to the taxpayer and each officer’s rank and everything else. We find that this was not an easy task, and Mr Codrington applied the correct process. Mr Sutton’s email was the definitive answer to the issue and the Claimant did not raise it again. Red Circle Day

[164]On 28 February 2023, the Claimant emailed Mr Codrington to ask him to protect his Rest Day on Saturday 18 March 2023. He was aware that the week beginning 13 March was his In Frame week and said that if he was required to make himself available, he could do an early turn, using the phrase ‘that would be fine’, but specifically stated that he did not want a late turn.

[165]An early turn is 7am – 4pm, a late turn is 2pm – 11pm and a night duty is 10pm to 7am. Mr Codrington agreed and wrote to the Claimant to confirm that he had protected 18 March, as requested.

[166]There was a large AID uplift on or around 16 March for AID on 18 March. The Respondent had already been asked to provide extra officers, but on 16 March they were asked to provide more officers from the BCU.

[167]On 16 March, an Inspector from ERPT was warned for AID on 18 March. This caused late the number of turn Inspectors on 18 March to drop below minimum strength. It left only one duty Inspector to cover three sectors. In order to plug the gap, the operational command unit (MO6), sent overtime text messages to acting Inspectors asking them to cover the late turn but there were no responses. MO6 then identified Inspectors Biggs and Kirk and notified them that they would be working 12-hour shifts on EA on 18 March to cover last minute AID.

[168]Mr Biggs wrote to Mr Codrington to ask if he could be excused from working a double shift as he had children. Mr Codrington asked if anyone on the In Frame list could be used to cover the late turn to prevent the Inspectors having to work extended hours. He also looked at the Inspector strengths for each shift on 18 March and noted that on the early turn and on night duty there were not enough Inspectors to move into the late turn. He had to consider that moving some Inspectors to the late turn would impact their ability to do their shifts on the following day. He also reviewed the Sergeants strengths and noted that there were insufficient Sergeants on duty to staff up as Duty Officer.

[169]It was only after making all these assessments of the situation across the BCU and the available resources, that Mr Codrington assigned the Claimant to cover the late turn for call sign EA400. Before doing so he checked with Mr Sutton, who was covering the team. He did so because the Claimant had stated that he did not want to do a late turn. Mr Sutton approved this action. Mr Codrington emailed the Claimant on 16 March and explained that he would have to use him on the late turn on 18 March because of the AID and because this caused the number of Inspectors on E relief to go under the required number.

[170]The term Red Circle Day was not well used by officers within the Respondent. A few of the Respondent’s witnesses had no knowledge of Red Circle Days and how to get them. The Claimant did not ask Mr Codrington to designate 18 March 2023 as a Red Circle Day. The emails in the bundle show that he sent some information about Red Circle Days to Mr Nixon after he received Mr Codrington’s decision, but he did not send it to Mr Codrington. It is likely that the facility to have a day designated as a Red Circle Day was not widely used. Mr Codrington’s evidence to the Tribunal which we accepted was that at the time, he did not know about Red Circle Days.

[171]From the information the Claimant sent to Mr Nixon on 17 March we find that this little-known policy stated that officers are allowed to protect up to 5 rostered rest days of their choice, which guarantees that they cannot be cancelled, other than in the most extreme operational circumstances. Certain Bank Holiday and other festive days could not be designated as Red Circle Days. Red circle rest days will run in the year from January to December and officers can choose to red circle consecutive rest days if they want to, for example, protect a whole weekend of their choice. Officers should notify their line manager of their choice of 'red circle' days via CARMs, giving at least 35 days’ notice. Requests with less than 35 days’ notice cannot be guaranteed but will be considered by local management and approved wherever possible. Red circle days would only be cancelled in the most extreme operational circumstances to meet a major unforeseen operational need and could only be cancelled by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner (DAC) or above. If, for exceptional reasons, one of the officer’s red circle days are cancelled, they would be able to Red Circle another rostered rest day in its place.

[172]At the time, the Claimant did not raise any objections with Mr Codrington, although he did raise it with Mr Nixon. Mr Codrington was aware that the Claimant, as an Inspector, was of a senior rank to himself and similarly to how Mr Biggs was taken off the duty when he pushed back, it was likely that had the Claimant also done so, the duty would have been moved to yet another Inspector. We find it unlikely that the Claimant telephoned Mr Codrington about this.

[173]The Claimant was the In Frame Inspector for the BCU that week. There were other officers that Mr Codrington could have asked but when the Claimant did not come back to him to object, there was no need for him to continue working on covering this shift as it was reasonable for him to consider that it was now covered.

[174]The Claimant has provided a long list of other Inspectors who were on rest day on 18 March and who in theory could have been asked to cover this shift. The Claimant was the only person who was the In Frame Inspector for that week. It was appropriate to ask the In Frame Inspector to do this.

[175]The Claimant’s first ET1 Tribunal claim form was not served on the Respondent until 12 April 2023. The Claimant also brought an internal complaint of race discrimination in May 2023. He raised the issue of different treatment in an email dated 13 March 2023 to Mr Byrne. State Visit from South Africa

[176]On 22 November 2023, Ms Butterfield emailed Mr Nixon to ask him to address a situation with the Claimant. On the day before, 21 November, the Claimant had been warned for AID for an event the following day, which was the state visit from South Africa. When Mr Codrington spoke to him to warn him of the AID, the Claimant double checked that he had no prior commitments on 22 November and then accepted the AID. His CARMs was changed to show him working the early shift on 22 November. At approximately 4.30am on 22 November, the Claimant called operations to inform them that he could not attend the AID as his cat had gone into labour. Ms Butterfield found this to be an unacceptable reason not to attend duty. She wrote to Mr Nixon to ask him to take informal management action (IMA) against the Claimant as this was the second time something similar had happened in the past three months. IMA was the step before the formal Unsatisfactory Performance Procedure. An IMA was a semiformal written warning that would let the officer know that they are falling below the required standard. The procedure has changed since then and an IMA is now known as a ‘learning through reflection’ and a different format is used.

[177]Failing to appear for AID or leaving before you are dismissed are both actions that were treated very seriously by the Respondent. They would both have required someone else to be found at extremely short notice, to replace the officer. This would have been very disruptive to the Respondent as it required a replacement to be found from the staff available on duty, who may already have been at work for many hours. This could result in the person being asked to take on the extra shift to have to work many hours to do so. For an Inspector, this is even more serious as Inspectors are salaried, which means that the extended shift does not attract overtime.

[178]Ms Butterfield asked Mr Nixon to find out whether there were any matters at home that made shifts difficult for the Claimant, since this was the second time this had happened. She suggested that the way to address such issues was not to fail to attend a shift at the last minute as this was very disruptive to the Respondent, but to apply for flexible working or for reasonable adjustments, if that was appropriate. Otherwise, the Claimant was required to fulfil all the requirements of the role of Inspector.

[179]Mr Nixon emailed the Claimant and asked him to meet to discuss the incidents. He gave the Claimant all the information so that the Claimant had time to prepare for their discussion. The Claimant emailed Mr Nixon with his explanation for the incidents. They spoke about it and Mr Nixon was satisfied that it would not occur again. He declined to issue the Claimant with an IMA and did not take any formal management action.

[180]We find that on 21 November 2022, Caroline Clark gave one day’s notice that she could not work on 22 November due to her child being sick. It was the Claimant’s case that she was treated differently than him, for a similar reason. We find that Ms Clark gave the Respondent a day’s notice of her inability to work a shift. The Claimant rang in at 4.30am to cancel the duty that same day, because his cat was having kittens. We find that the two situations are similar but not the same. Annual leave and paternity leave

[181]We find it likely that the Claimant booked back-to-back annual leave, rest days and paternity leave in August 2023, and this was authorised by Mr Nixon on 12 April 2023. The booked period included the August bank holiday Monday, which is also the day of the Notting Hill Carnival, which we were told is one of the Met’s busiest days and one of the days on which it was not possible to book any leave or a Red Circle Day. Leave on Notting Hill Carnival weekend would not normally be authorised except with Ms Butterfield’s approval, as Superintendent.

[182]When he was asked about the leave, Mr Nixon said that he could not recall agreeing to the annual leave, but he did recall agreeing the parental leave. He had agreed it sometime before. Mr Nixon was responsible for approving leave for many people and his evidence was that at that time, he received over 100 emails a day, many of them asking for approval for one thing or another. He could not recall everything he had approved. It was also possible that he had not appreciated at the time he approved it, that the Claimant had requested periods of paternity, annual leave and rest days, to be consecutive to each other, amounting to approximately 7 weeks’ leave.

[183]We find that Mr Nixon might have been out at the time that Butterfield called him, and they did not get to speak to each other about this. Mr Nixon acknowledged in his evidence to us that there was a different process that he ought to have followed, given the length of time that the Claimant requested off, when considered together. The Claimant requested time off as annual leave, from 21 August to 4 September and then a period of paternity leave from 4 to 17 September 2023. The Claimant would then be on rest days from 18 to 22 September. Taken together, that was a long time for an Inspector to be off from work.

[184]In her correspondence with Mr Nixon, we find that Ms Butterfield challenged him about the way he authorised the Claimant’s leave. He had not followed the Respondent’s procedure. Normal leave for an Inspector would usually be managed through OSE but maternity leave/maternity support leave, paternity leave or any other long leave would need to go through the line manger as well as by completing a form so that the senior officer, in this case, Ms Butterfield, could give consideration as to whether there was a need for someone to act up in the absence as there would be tasks that would need to be done that should not wait until their return.

[185]Ms Butterfield agreed that the Claimant could have the leave, as it had already been agreed. In her email to the Claimant, she confirmed that the leave was authorised, and she was not going to interfere with it. She simply reminded him that in future, leave requests should go to the OSE, via the line manager. She copied her email to Reshma Sher, who by that time was acting Inspector and the Claimant’s line manager, and to Ms Kaur, and asked them to review the Sergeant numbers over the period of the Claimant’s leave. The Respondent needed to consider whether someone needed to act up to cover the period of the Claimant’s leave or whether it could be covered by asking existing Sergeants taking on more work.

[186]The Claimant confirmed that he had asked the OSE for approval for two weeks of the leave, asked Mr Nixon for a further two weeks and then applied to MetHR for two weeks paternity leave, which would have been referred to Mr Nixon. This may have been why the total amount of leave was not picked up by anyone until much later.

[187]It was appropriate for the Respondent to give the Claimant some advice and coaching on the correct procedure for applying for leave, especially when it was for this length of time and when it covered a day like the Notting Hill Carnival Monday where an officer would not normally be able to book leave.

[188]We did not have any evidence on the circumstances surrounding Mr Holgate taking two months’ leave when his child was born in October/November 2022, as the Claimant stated in his witness statement. We were not told whether Mr Holgate was managed by Ms Butterfield. It is unlikely that the Claimant knew all of Mr Holgate’s circumstances and the process he went through to get his leave authorised or what type/s of leave he had. We note that his leave did not include the Monday of the Notting Hill Carnival or any other statutory or Bank Holidays and that it was only for paternity leave.

[189]On 7 December 2023, Chief Inspector Louise Jackson had emailed all Inspectors and advised them to place all annual leave requests through the OSE, which was in keeping with Ms Butterfield’s instructions to the Claimant.

[190]On 26 May 2023, the Claimant emailed Matt Chatters to ask what the procedure was for getting leave authorised. Mr Chatters responded to say that the Sergeants usually sort it out between themselves but also said that if he needed time off, he would speak to the ‘Gov’ or one of the ‘other skippers’ by which it was likely that he meant a supervisor or manager i.e. an Inspector and then get CARMs updated. We do not recall Ms Butterfield being drawn to this email in cross examination, but we find that it suggests that the usual practice is to seek permission from a manager and then get CARMs updated. Awayday

[191]On 1 November 2022, Ms Butterfield’s staff officer, Jake Jobson wrote to all the BCU Inspectors and Chief Inspectors to inform them of an Away Day she was planning. They were told that it had been booked for 2 February 2023. He told them that the venue was provisionally booked but might change. Mr Jobson asked the Inspectors to forward to him any suggestions for agenda items for the day.

[192]The email was copied to OSE so that it could be put in their CARMs to avoid any abstractions or anything else being booked in the space. It was therefore highly unlikely that the date would change. Ms Butterfield instructed that another Inspector’s rest day should be cancelled so that he could attend and another who had planned to work from home was told that he could not. Those two were white officers.

[193]All the invited officers indicated that they could be there on that day, which is why it was booked then. The Claimant had not responded to the invitation to say that he could not be there, so Ms Butterfield believed that he was available.

[194]On 19 January 2023, Mr Jobson emailed again to all Inspectors and Chief Inspectors to remind them of the event and to ask whether there were any dietary restrictions that he needed to be aware of.

[195]Sometime after he received the invitation to the Inspectors’ Away Day, the Claimant arranged to attend a police college day for underrepresented groups on the same day, 2 February. We find that it was reasonable for Ms Butterfield to be annoyed with him for doing so when he been notified at least 3 months prior, of the Away Day and that it was a work event that he was expected to attend. Since it was put on everyone’s CARMs, it was reasonable to expect him to know about it and that he was expected to attend.

[196]When the situation was pointed out to him the Claimant queried whether the Away Day could be moved. This would have meant inconveniencing everyone else. Ms Butterfield asked Mr Noori about the event that the Claimant wanted to go to, as he also intended to attend it. She was told that it was a conference. She concluded that there would most likely be other opportunities for him to attend. Ms Butterfield refused to move the Away Day. We find that in the circumstances, it was reasonable for her to do so. Ms Butterfield

[197]In 2020/2021, Lisa Butterfield became the Claimant’s second line manager.

[198]At the end of 2020, from her conversations with Zed Asghar, Ms Butterfield became aware of the meetings that the black and ethnic minority officers were having with Mr Clayman although she did not know exactly what had been discussed or that the Claimant had attended those meetings.

[199]She was also aware of a WhatsApp group made up of black and ethnic minority officers at the BCU. In the Tribunal hearing, she discussed seeing a screenshot of a message in that group, although it had not been possible to see the names of the members of it.

[200]She first met the Claimant in July 2022, when they met at Ilford Police Station. The Claimant recalled her description of him as quiet. She asked whether he considered he would be able to cope with an acting Inspector role, given the authority that role brings. The Claimant did not challenge her at the time but found the question to be odd. At this point the Claimant had not acted up as an Inspector yet but had passed his Part 1 exam.

[201]On 19 October 2022, Ms Butterfield went to the LRPM, in Mr Nixon’s place as he was absent from work that day. She would not normally attend the LRPM. This was a monthly meeting at which resourcing requirements of different departments in the BCU are discussed and decisions made about posting officers to meet these needs. The meeting was chaired by Mr Rolston. He would have been the most senior officer in the room, and it was his job to query, approve or refuse requests brought to the meeting. In the Tribunal hearing, there was some confusion about Mr Rolston’s role at the LRPM. His evidence was that he could rely on the portfolio leads to know their areas of business and the vacancies therein. He considered his role to be one of rubber stamp postings. Everyone else who gave evidence considered that it was his role to interrogate requests for postings and to mediate between conflicting demands, for example if there were two departments who wanted the same person or where scarce resources meant that not everyone could get what they wanted. The role of the chair of the LRPM is an important one and an issue we return to in this judgment.

[202]We find it likely that the meeting was presented with the charts which are at page 523.

[203]It is likely that Ms Butterfield decided to bid for Stacy Laslett to be appointed to the Sergeant role in Ilford Town wards. Ms Laslett was newly promoted to substantive Sergeant. Ms Butterfield told us that she did not want to miss the opportunity to get someone whom she thought was good. In her witness statement she stated that she did not want to miss the chance to have a substantive Sergeant as there were many acting Sergeants across the neighbourhood teams. However, the Sergeant role in Ilford Town wards was not empty as it was the Claimant’s substantive role. The Claimant was acting up as an Inspector, covering Ms Jenkins’ post, while she was on maternity leave. He was not permanently posted and usually, the backfill person would act up so that all the permanent posts are kept available, should everyone need to revert back. There was no guarantee that the substantive post would be kept available although it is usually desirable. There was no discussion at the LRPM about the implications of Ms Butterfield’s request for the Claimant.

[204]The role was not shown as a substantive vacancy on the spreadsheet. However, Mr Rolston agreed Ms Butterfield’s request. We find it unlikely that Ms Butterfield spoke to Mr Rolston after the meeting, to let him know that she had bid in error for a substantive Sergeant in a role that was not actually vacant. She did not take any action that would have demonstrated that she immediately regretted doing it. Mr Rolston did not recall talking to her about it and confirmed in his evidence to the Tribunal that had she raised it with him shortly after the meeting, it was likely that it could have been rectified. Instead, we find it more likely that Ms Butterfield was aware that this was the Claimant’s substantive role, and she calculated that once the Claimant completed covering Ms Jenkins’ maternity leave, he would be found another role and would not need to return to Ilford. She surmised that in the interim, she would have had the benefit of working with Ms Laslett in Ilford Town Centre. She described that area as the most demanding and violent area in the BCU. We find that although there was an expectation for an acting Inspector to return to their substantive role, this was not guaranteed.

[205]Ms Butterfield’s action in bidding for Ms Laslett at this meeting displaced another Asian officer, Athif Sheik, who had been acting Sergeant in the Claimant’s substantive role at Ilford. On Ms Laslett’s appointment as the substantive Sergeant, he had to revert to being a PC until another space could be found for him. The expectation was that Ms Jenkins would return from maternity leave in January 2023. It is unlikely that Ms Butterfield knew in advance that the circumstances would change as it was only while on maternity leave, that Ms Jenkins was promoted.

[206]In her interview with the grievance investigator, Ms Butterfield confirmed that sometime in May 2023, she contacted Reshma Sher after the acting Inspector process concluded, to ask her preference for where she wanted to be posted. Ms Sher had been one of the highest scoring candidates and so it was likely that she would be posted first. She stated that she believed that she was allowed to champion females. Also, that she did not see why she would want someone working for her who makes vexatious claims and called her racist. We find it likely that this was a reference to the Claimant. She did not contact the Claimant to ask where he wanted to be placed.

[207]Also in that interview, Ms Butterfield made some comments about the Claimant’s personality, which were drawn to the Tribunal’s attention. Having earlier stated that he was quiet, she now stated that he was a blank canvas, abrupt and also that his conduct had been shocking and unprofessional. The only matter that she referred to as evidence of this shocking behaviour was that he had made allegations of race discrimination against her and had not approached her for opportunities for development before making those allegations. In the Tribunal hearing also, Ms Butterfield was particularly affronted that the Claimant had not approached her about what he considered to be discriminatory behaviour before raising it formally. In her live evidence, she felt that she was an approachable manager and that it would have been unfortunate if he felt unable to do so.

[208]The Respondent’s procedures do not require an officer to raise such matters with a senior officer before making a complaint. She also confirmed that they did not have much interaction with each other and so did not have a supportive, working relationship such as the relationship the Claimant had with Mr Nixon. She referred to her relationship with the Claimant as ‘broken’ on two occasions in the interviews. We find that it would be particularly difficult for a junior officer to raise such matters with a senior officer, two ranks above.

[209]However, we find that at the time, when Mr Nixon told the Claimant that Ms Butterfield had bid for Ms Laslett to take up his substantive post as Sergeant at Ilford, the Claimant did not appear to be particularly bothered by this. We find that they spoke about it sometime in October/November 2022. Mr Nixon’s recollection was that the Claimant’s reaction was to say ‘yeah,’ when he told him. That may have been because he also expected to remain in the maternity cover post until sometime in 2023 and to be appointed to another acting Inspector role before it ended.

[210]Unfortunately for the Claimant, while he was covering the maternity role, Ms Jenkins was promoted to Chief Inspector. The decision was made in October/November and Mr Nixon delayed advertising for her replacement. Once she was appointed to a different rank, her job became a substantive vacancy. This meant that the Claimant could no longer continue in the role as it was not suitable for an acting Inspector to occupy. Ms Jenkins/Baker was going to return to work but be moved to a different team as she was going to be working in the Professional Standards Unit (PSU).

[211]The Claimant was able to remain in post while Mr Nixon advertised for and secured a permanent replacement for Ms Jenkins. As the post was now designated as a substantive post, it could not be held permanently by someone acting up but had to be advertised as a substantive Inspector post. Mr Nixon managed to delay advertising and recruiting to the role to allow the Claimant time to complete some of his projects. Although Ms Jenkins’ promotion was known in October, Mr Nixon did not advertise the role until 15 December. Once the Claimant saw the advert, he wrote to Mr Nixon for clarity on his position. At the time Mr Nixon reassured the Claimant that he should not worry as he did not expect the Claimant to be stepping down to a Sgt role anytime soon. They both hoped that the Claimant would pass the next promotion process. Also, they expected that the substantive Inspector would not be ready to take up the position for a few months as their posting would need to go to the next LRPM to be ratified, which usually took a few months.

[212]Mr Handley was a substantive Inspector, and he was successful in his application to be the substantive Inspector at Barking & Dagenham SNT. This was on 25 January 2023. On the same day, Mr Nixon told the Claimant that Ian Handley had been appointed as the Barking & Dagenham SNT Inspector and that he had passed on the Claimant’s contact details to him so that they could make contact and meet so the Claimant could do a handover and ensure the smooth transition of the work.

[213]About a month later, on 23 February 2023, Mr Nixon announced to the SNT Inspectors in their fortnightly meeting that the Claimant would be replaced by Inspector Handley at the Barking & Dagenham SNT. We find that this was in the context of thanking the Claimant for his work and letting the other Inspectors know that he would be leaving. They would have needed to know as they were expected to work together. Either the Claimant or Mr Nixon told the meeting that the Claimant was going to be posted to the Sergeant role in Redbridge.

[214]As the Claimant and Mr Nixon anticipated, it was not until the LRPM on 16 March 2023, that Ian Handley was formally posted to the Barking & Dagenham role, beginning 1 May 2023. It was also formally decided that the Claimant could be posted into a SNT Sergeant role in Havering. As soon as the meeting ended, Mr Nixon spoke to the Claimant on the phone and told him what had been decided as he wanted the Claimant to hear it from him and as soon as possible. He anticipated that it was likely to be upsetting news for him. This confirmed what the Claimant already knew which was, that Ian Handley was going to be the new Inspector at Barking & Dagenham SNT.

[215]The Claimant remained in the acting Inspector role in Barking & Dagenham until 1 May 2023, which is the date on which Inspector Handley took over the role.

[216]On 27 March 2023, Mr Nixon confirmed this again when they met in person. They discussed the acting Inspector posts at this meeting and which job the Claimant could take up when he stepped down from the maternity leave cover job.

[217]During their discussion the Claimant informed Mr Nixon that he had issued his first Employment Tribunal claim. He said that it was not against Mr Nixon but against the Respondent and was about the promotion process. At the time, Mr Nixon was not aware that the claim included complaints of discrimination. It is likely that shortly after this meeting, Mr Nixon told Ms Butterfield that the Claimant had brought a claim in the Employment Tribunal. They did not know the details of the claim.

[218]The Claimant had officially been posted to the Sgt role in Havering but there was another Sergeant role in Redbridge that he preferred. Mr Nixon informed him that there might be an open acting Inspector role in Havering soon, but it was not yet available and would not be until the other acting Inspector process was complete. On 21 March, Mr Nixon wrote to the LRPM to ask whether the Claimant could be posted to Redbridge instead, now that Richard Pollock had resigned as it was always the Claimant’s preference.

[219]From 1 May 2023 the Claimant reverted to being a substantive Sgt.

[220]That acting Inspector process completed, and the Claimant was told by email on 9 May that he had been successful.

[221]On 12 May, as the Claimant was still in the Barking & Dagenham role, Ms Butterfield emailed him to make it clear to him that he had to parade with the team at Redbridge as Mr Handley had been appointed as the substantive Inspector and there was no longer a post there for him. The Claimant had by then had some time to handover to Mr Handley and she reminded him that it would be helpful if he similarly gave the acting Sgt at Redbridge the opportunity to handover to him. She acknowledged that there may be some movement following the acting Inspector process that had just completed but in the interim, the Claimant was to report to Redbridge. The Claimant had known about this since Mr Handley was appointed as Mr Nixon kept him up to date with developments, and it had been confirmed at the LRPM on 17 March 2023. Motor vehicle strategy

[222]While the Claimant was acting Inspector at Barking & Dagenham SNT, car theft was identified as being an issue in the area. On 15 February 2023, Ms Butterfield emailed the Claimant and advised that motor vehicle theft was likely to come into focus for performance, prevention and reduction as part of the Commissioner’s focus on ‘neighbourhood crime’. She referred the Claimant to Richard Pollock who had already had some success with this issue in Redbridge. She advised that they should liaise, and the Claimant take note of some of the strategies that he had implemented.

[223]The Claimant took this on board and managed to get some funding from the Council to implement motor vehicle theft prevention strategies. Mr David Lingard was the community safety operations manager at the Council and someone whom the Claimant worked with quite closely. Mr Lingard’s role was to manage the CCTV service, the specialist anti-social behaviour team, community safety officers and the strategic and operational aspects of the Council’s legal responsibilities. He chaired a weekly partnership tasking meeting, which was regularly attended by the Claimant in his capacity as acting Inspector for Barking & Dagenham SNT.

[224]The Claimant told Mr Lingard about the need for additional support/funding for prevention of motor vehicle crime. The Claimant applied for Council funding, which was successful, with Mr Lingard’s support. The project was awarded a total of £7,500. Some of that money was to be used to purchase faraday pouches and some to cover the cost of overtime for additional officers.

[225]The Claimant replied to Ms Butterfield on 21 February telling her what had been done so far to reduce motor vehicle crime. He pointed out that they had limited resources in terms of vehicles - other than a minibus. In her response, Ms Butterfield acknowledged the work the Claimant had done and thanked him for it. She stated that it was coming back into focus for the Respondent and that what he had done so far was a great start. It would sit alongside a local hot spot profile.

[226]On 15 March 2023, the issue was raised at the next EA BCU’s Tactical Tasking and Coordination Group (TTCG) meeting. Although the Claimant was not shown in the minutes as having attended this meeting, both him and Mr Lingard refer to him being in attendance and speaking at this meeting in support of his bid for additional resources. It is likely that he attended the meeting, made a presentation and asked for an unmarked response police vehicle to support the operation. The minutes only recorded that there was a presentation under the heading Vehicle Theft. It was not noted that he had asked for additional resources.

[227]Zed Asghar was also present at this meeting, as was Mr Nixon. Ms Butterfield was co-chair of the meeting along with a more senior officer, Mr Vandenburgh. As recorded in the minutes of the meeting, the issue was given scant reference, apart from acknowledging the presentation. After the Claimant presented, the chair, Mr Vandenburg spoke first and stated that this issue was no longer a priority for the Respondent. He then asked Ms Butterfield for her opinion. Ms Butterfield agreed with him, and the meeting agreed to refuse the Claimant’s request. It is likely that Ms Butterfield did not speak in support of there being a vehicle specifically assigned to fighting Motor Vehicle Crime.

[228]Sometime later, when Superintendent David Rhodes was posted to Barking & Dagenham SNT, he was able to secure the response vehicle resource for the SNT. This was to conduct the vehicle theft patrols that the Claimant intended to do while he was there. Mr Rhodes was a more senior officer to the Claimant. It is likely that this happened a few months after the Claimant left the Barking & Dagenham SNT. It was a different time, with different priorities which could explain a different result. The Claimant admitted in cross-examination that he did not know the circumstances under which Mr Rhodes’ vehicle was approved. It was also the Claimant’s evidence that the money Mr Rhodes obtained was not allocated via the TTCG meeting.

[229]It is likely that different strategies and priorities exist across different areas covered by the local BCU and the London-wide Respondent. The Claimant’s evidence was that Mr Ashgar, who at the time was in Havering, had not been asked to address Motor Vehicle Crime in his borough. The Claimant had been asked to do so but there would have been competing demands on limited resources at this meeting. We note that the minutes record a request for £10,000 for other work in the Romford area and only £7,500 of that was approved. Therefore, we find that not everyone got what they asked for in this meeting. The meeting had to decide between competing requests for funding for a variety of projects, on a budget of only £10,000 a month. 22 March 2023

[230]The Claimant had planned a training event on 22 March. The event was organised jointly with the Council, and the Claimant worked with Mr Lingard on it. It was a partnership and safer neighbourhoods training day. The day had a dual purpose as it was intended to train both police and council officers on various projects and on new legislation. Various guest speakers had been invited to attend, including Ms Butterfield who was scheduled to speak after lunch.

[231]The Claimant had not given her a specific brief to speak to. Her slot was entitled ‘Senior Leadership Team talk’ on the agenda. She was conscious that the Casey Report had just been published, and she believed that some officers would be feeling demoralised by it. She decided to focus her attention on the impact of the report on her staff and their working relationship with the Council. Mr Lingard recalled her saying how unfortunate the Casey report had been and how her officers could put the sentiments in the report into perspective and move on.

[232]During the day some of the officers were commended on their work in the borough. During Ms Butterfield’s presentation, Mr Lingard publicly commented on how excellent the Claimant and his team had been discharging their duties. Ms Butterfield did not echo his comments. It was not clear to us how familiar she was at the time with the work the Claimant had been doing with the Council as she was not his direct line manager.

[233]We find it unlikely that Ms Butterfield spoke much to the Claimant while she was at the training day. We find it highly unlikely that the Claimant and Ms Butterfield had a friendly relationship. It is more likely that they had a cordial working relationship. Ms Butterfield arrived early and sat at a table with the Claimant and other officers during lunch, with her laptop open on the table. It is likely that she was distracted and possibly working on her laptop and not speaking much to colleagues. It is also likely that she was anxious to leave as soon as possible.

[234]Everyone who gave evidence, who was there that day, recalled seeing her speak to Gary Jones, one of the Respondent’s local authority partners. It is likely that the Claimant did not agree with Ms Butterfield referring to the Casey report that day, but it was reasonable that she should do so since it would have been on the minds of most of the officers, since it had just been published and there was some negative publicity about it. It is unfortunate if Ms Butterfield did not see the report as overall a positive development as although it set out the situation Baroness Casey found in the Respondent, it also included steps that the Respondent should take in order to restore public confidence and to strengthen the Respondent’s relationship with some of London’s communities. We do not know whether this was covered in her presentation.

[235]It is likely that the term ‘hostile conduct’ in the list of issues, is the Claimant’s reference to the fact that she did not speak to him at the event. We find it unlikely that she did. She also did not praise him.

[236]We did not have evidence of any praise or positive statements made by Lisa Butterfield about Mr Ross, Mr Feather and Mr Holgate at this event or at any other time.

[237]Dan Bacon was the other Inspector working in Barking & Dagenham. In October 2022, Mr Lingard emailed Mr Nixon to complain about what he saw as the lack of partnership working, broken promises and hostility towards the Claimant from Mr Bacon’s Town Centre team. Mr Lingard’s senior manager also raised this issue with the borough commander, Mr Bell when he attended a different event. The Claimant and Mr Lingard assumed that nothing had been done in response to these complaints. The Respondent’s evidence to the Tribunal was that there had been a discussion with Mr Bacon about his approach to partnership working and the appropriate way to go about it. There was no feedback to Mr Lingard, but it is likely that action had been taken in response. Mr Lingard worked for the Council and not for the Respondent and would not have been privy to any internal processes that occurred. The Respondent would have been aware that the issues raised by the Council could adversely affect its relationship and could jeopardise some funding as the Council provide funds for some police work. All this meant that Mr Lingard and his manager’s complaints would not have been ignored and that a senior manager would have spoken to Mr Bacon about it. Mr Nixon’s live evidence was that he had spoken to Mr Bacon about his performance on more than one occasion.

[238]Mr Bacon had a different approach to the Claimant, to the work they were doing in the borough. Whereas the Claimant had a good working relationship with Council officers and his team were visible in the town centre, Mr Bacon preferred for example, not to arrest as a first response but instead, to try to assist someone who Mr Lingard considered to be a ‘prolific trouble maker’ within the town centre. In his account of his dealings with Mr Bacon, we find that Mr Lingard would have preferred that Mr Bacon’s team make more use of their powers of arrest than they were doing. Mr Bacon and the Claimant clearly had different ways of working.

[239]When the Claimant informed Mr Lingard that he was leaving the Borough and would be replaced by Mr Handley, he raised concerns with the Respondent that they were losing an Asian officer who was being replaced by a white man. He also raised this directly with the borough commander. He expressed to Mr Bell his concern that with the Claimant gone, the Respondent would not be representative of the local community since there was a large percentage of Asian/black/ethnic minority residents in that part of the BCU.

[240]Mr Lingard clearly thought highly of the Claimant and the work he had been doing at Barking & Dagenham and the strategies that he and his team had implemented. He praised the Claimant and his work, at the meeting on 22 March, directly with the borough commander and in the Tribunal hearing. Ms Jenkins (Baker)

[241]Ms Jenkins was on maternity leave from November 2021 and returned to work in January 2023. She had been on the interviewing panel for the acting Inspector for Schools role in November 2021. That was the first time she met the Claimant.

[242]Before she went on maternity leave in 2021, she had been the Inspector at Barking & Dagenham SNT. The Claimant acted up into her role while she was on maternity leave. While on maternity leave, she was promoted to Chief Inspector and oved to the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) when she returned to work in January 2023. She was still in the PSU at the time of the hearing. In that role she has oversight of grievances raised in the BCU. She would liaise with the Grievance Management Team in relation to grievances, as needed. This was how she came to be aware of the Claimant’s grievance.

[243]Ms Jenkins was made aware that the Claimant had brought an employment tribunal claim shortly after the Respondent received it in April 2023. She was not aware of the meetings with Mr Clayman in October 2020 and February 2021, until she began the process of writing her witness statement for this hearing.

[244]The Claimant wrote to her on 6 May 2023 to raise concerns about the way he felt that he was being treated following him raising allegations of victimisation and race discrimination around promotion. In the email the Claimant stated that he had previously raised concerns about several white officers being placed in acting up positions without having to go through any sort of formal process, like he had to. He told her that he had already written to Mr Byrne and that the letter had been passed to Mr Rolston to reply. He had not had a response to his email but a couple of days later, another acting Inspector process was launched, which he passed. He also complained about being displaced from his substantive post in Redbridge by Ms Laslett. He believed that he had been a victim of discrimination/victimisation by the SLT because he had complained, which had affected his promotion opportunities. It was appropriate for the Claimant to raise these issues with Ms Jenkins as she was in the PSU. After an exchange of emails between them in which he asked her to keep their discussions confidential, they arranged a time to talk.

[245]They spoke on the telephone on the following day, 7 May. Ms Jenkins assured him that she would deal with his complaints impartially and that she would speak to Mr Bell to confirm the next steps. Afterwards, the Claimant emailed her to summarise their discussion. He specifically complained about local policies not being followed correctly to the detriment of Asian officers. He raised allegations of misconduct which had been levelled against his wife, who was also a serving officer in the same BCU, and his belief that had suffered victimisation because he made a complaint about her being investigated. He asked her to consult with Zed Ashgar and Yasar Noori as part of her investigations. She confirmed that as part of the investigation into his employment tribunal claim, the Respondent would have to speak to the people named in the complaint and that confidentiality would be difficult to maintain.

[246]Ms Jenkins felt that as she was part of the senior leadership team (SLT) that the Claimant was complaining about, it would not be appropriate for her to investigate the issues he raised. During that week she spoke to Mr Bell and Mr Rolston to inform them that she would be handing over his email and complaint to another BCU to fact find on the issues raised, in accordance with the Respondent’s professional standards policy regarding controversial allegations.

[247]On 9 May, at the conclusion of an SLT meeting at Ilford Police Station, Ms Jenkins asked to speak to Ms Butterfield. We find it likely that Ms Jenkins told Ms Butterfield that a complaint of race discrimination had been brought against her by the Claimant. Ms Butterfield recalled Ms Jenkins telling her that the Claimant had said words to the effect of ‘when is the BCU going to address the fact that Lisa Butterfield is racist’. The Claimant denies using those words to Ms Jenkins. Ms Jenkins also denies that she used those words when she spoke to Ms Butterfield, and we find it unlikely that it was said in those terms. It is unlikely that Ms Jenkins gave Ms Butterfield any additional details of the complaint during this conversation.

[248]We find it unlikely that when she spoke to Ms Butterfield on 9 May, Ms Jenkins was conducting a fact-finding on the Claimant’s complaint. She had already decided to pass it on to another BCU. Ms Jenkins did not take any notes, nor did she make a record of their conversation. She did she ask Ms Butterfield any questions about the allegations or give her any detail of the Claimant’s complaint. We find it more likely that she was giving Ms Butterfield a ‘heads up’ about the complaint. She told Ms Butterfield that there would have to be a fact-finding exercise on the Claimant’s complaint, which suggested that this was not it. It is likely that she felt that Ms Butterfield should know about this complaint.

[249]Ms Butterfield was upset by what Ms Jenkins told her. She was also angry. She said words to the effect of ‘why me?’ and Ms Jenkins likely responded with words to the effect of ‘it’s the Zed factor’ which we find was likely to be a reference to Mr Zed Asghar who was a senior Asian officer in the BCU, who had also made complaints of race discrimination against her and who was friendly with and a support to the Claimant. It is likely that Ms Butterfield’s obvious upset was noticed by other officers who had attended the SLT meeting as it was her evidence that Mr Noori telephoned her later to ask if she was ok. The Claimant’s evidence is that when he spoke to him about this that Mr Noori denied doing so.

[250]After speaking to Ms Butterfield, Ms Jenkins spoke to Mr Rolston and Mr Sanderson who had been involved in the recent acting Inspector process, and it is likely that she was then conducting a fact-finding exercise. We will outline the process of the When she spoke to the informal resolution champion, Kamran Qureshi, Ms Jenkins told him that she had been told that the Claimant had been offered the EA400 role and had declined it. Mr Sanderson had told her that. When she spoke to the Claimant about this, Ms Jenkins advised the Claimant that he should consider taking the role and then the SLT would have to accommodate his restrictions/welfare needs so that he could still perform the role. The Claimant chose not to do so. The Claimant’s comparators in relation to this complaint – Alfie Read

[251]On 1 November 2022 the Claimant submitted an MM1 complaint on behalf of Mr Hassan, an Asian officer who was one of his direct reports. An MM1 is a written complaint against an officer. This can be done by colleagues within the Respondent or can be done by a member of the public.

[252]The MM1 contained allegations against another officer called Alfie Read. The allegations were that Mr Read made stereotypical comments of a racial nature towards Mr Hassan. There was also an allegation of incivility by him, also of a racial nature. Mr Hassan was so upset that he was given leave so that he could go home early. Ms Jenkins was not in the PSU at the time this MM1 was submitted. She did not deal with Mr Hassan’s allegations against Mr Read.

[253]Once an MM1 is submitted to the PSU, it would usually be ‘triaged’ by being assessed by an Inspector to see whether it was of any substance, at which point, it would be investigated further.

[254]Once a complaint has been through that initial investigation, there could be a request for further information, or if it looked like misconduct or gross misconduct, it could be referred to the DPS. It was not the case that every complaint required an MM1 before action could be taken on it or before it could be assessed.

[255]Neither Mr Hassan nor the Claimant had any feedback from the PSU about his complaint about his treatment by Alfie Read. Mr Hassan added further allegations as the months went on, and in March 2023, he sent them to the borough commander. Mr Hassan’s complaints were not only about race but also included general conduct allegations against senior officers and trainers. Mr Bell responded to tell him that he had asked colleagues in SLT to ensure that any conduct allegations raised by him were properly recorded and investigated and that he was given regular updates on the conduct allegations that related to him. That was an appropriate response.

[256]The Claimant’s evidence was that Mr Hassan’s complaint was closed with no case to answer and no referral to DPS.

[257]Sometime later, Mr Read made counter allegations against Mr Hassan. He complained that Mr Hassan had defamed his character. This was referred to Ms Jenkins who assessed the allegations as gross misconduct. As a result, and before investigations into that allegation was completed, Mr Hassan was placed on restricted duties for three months. It was only after the DPS concluded that there was no case to answer was he returned to full duties. We were not shown any documents showing the decision to put restrictions on Mr Hassan, but it was not disputed that Mr Read’s complaint led to those being imposed for three months.

[258]Once the restrictions were lifted, Mr Hassan was invited to a meeting with Ms Jenkins and Caroline Clark. It was in this meeting that Ms Jenkins told Mr Hassan her story of being rejected for the mounted branch because she believed that ethnic minority officers were being preferred when it was her belief that ‘Black people did not ride horses’. Her evidence was that this was her way of showing him empathy. It was not clear how it did so.

[259]When Mr Hassan raised the issue again some months later, the Claimant confirmed that he had submitted the MM1 and had no response. He reported that Mr Hassan had not been told why he had been put on restricted duties and had not been served with the appropriate form to put them in place. It transpired that Mr Sanderson had conducted a full review and had been satisfied that no formal misconduct investigation was required. Mr Hassan had not been told the outcome of his complaint, and the Claimant was not told the result of the MM1 he submitted on Mr Hassan’s behalf.

[260]This means that restrictions were placed on Mr Hassan before Mr Read’s allegations were fully investigated. We do not know when Mr Sanderson conducted the investigation into Mr Hassan’s allegations against Alfie Read and whether Mr Read was told about the allegations before they were investigated. Scott Walker

[261]In April 2023, allegations of inappropriate conduct were made against Scott Walker by Alicia Malcolm, who was a black female officer. Ms Jenkins imposed local restrictions on Mr Walker, before the allegations were severity assessed. We were not told of Mr Walker’s ethnicity, but it is likely that he was a white officer.

[262]In the letter to the Claimant notifying him of the restrictions, Ms Jenkins advised him that the restrictions needed to be served on Mr Walker by an Inspector or above and should be given in writing. The Claimant was told that he could explain to Mr Walker that a complaint had been made about his conduct towards Ms Malcolm. The original email from Ms Jenkins to the Claimant, which was in the bundle, was redacted. An unredacted copy was produced during the hearing. We find that in it, Ms Jenkins told the Claimant that he should let Mr Walker know that a complaint had been made about racial and sexual comments made towards PC Alicia Malcolm. Therefore, we find it likely that Ms Malcom’s allegation was that there had been discriminatory conduct towards her because of her protected characteristics of race and gender.

[263]This means that Mr Walker was told about these complaints before the investigation happened and restrictions were placed on him at that time.

[264]By 14 March 2023, those restrictions were lifted, and Ms Jenkins wrote to the Claimant to let him know and to ask him to tell Mr Walker that no further action would be taken regarding the allegation of gross misconduct. Ms DeFreitas

[265]On 3 March 2023 the Respondent received an MM1 against Ms DeFreitas, who was a white police officer. Ms Jenkins conducted a severity assessment of the complaint on the same day and assessed it as potentially gross misconduct because it involved the most serious issues for the Respondent, which were honesty and integrity. She emailed Mr Nixon to ask that the officer should be told about the restrictions placed on her by an officer of the rank of Inspector or above and that they should be explained to her.

[266]It is likely that the restrictions were put in place because of inconsistencies in the details she provided. By 14 March those restrictions were lifted, and Ms Jenkins wrote to the Claimant to confirm this. He was told that there would be no further action taken in relation to the allegation of gross misconduct and Ms DeFreitas should be informed of this decision.

[267]This means that Ms DeFreitas was informed about the allegations against her once the complaint had been severity assessed. Mr Hannant

[268]We can see from the documents that a misconduct hearing was arranged for Mr Hannant in February 2025. Although we did not hear live evidence on this matter, the Claimant has referred to it at paragraph 16.8 as a comparator so it is appropriate to make findings from the documents in order that we can determine whether Mr Hannant is a proper comparator.

[269]From the document in the bundle at page 1995 – 1996, we find that the alleged misconduct was that he had breached standards of professional behaviour. It was alleged that Mr Hannant, who was not based at EA BCU, improperly and without authorisation disclosed to another officer, who was under criminal investigation that a complaint had been made against them, thereby creating a risk that the officer under investigation might impede or seek to obstruct the investigation. Mr Hannant also failed to take steps to ensure that the investigators of the complaint were made aware that the officer being investigated had been informed of the investigation. This was considered gross misconduct.

[270]The Respondent submitted that Mr Hannant’s situation was very different from Ms Jenkins situation when she spoke to Ms Butterfield and told her about the Claimant’s complaint. Mr Hannant informed someone who was under criminal investigation at the time and his actions could have prejudiced the criminal case. Ms Butterfield was never the subject of a criminal investigation. Sarah Wolfe

[271]We had documents in the trial bundle relating to complaints made by Sarah Wolfe, who was a junior officer reporting to Mr Asghar. As the Claimant also referred to her as a comparator, we made the following findings of fact.

[272]Ms Wolfe raised issues of Mr Asghar’s treatment of her with Mr Nixon who investigated the issues she raised with him and concluded that there was nothing that he had been told that amounted to misconduct or gross misconduct. He suggested mediation as a way forward to both officers, to mend their relationship and set some clear standards for both to adhere to.

[273]Ms Wolfe was unhappy with that outcome and decided to approach Lisa Butterfield about this. With Ms Butterfield’s encouragement and support, Ms Wolfe raised a formal grievance against Mr Asghar in March 2023. This was a serious complaint, containing 6 allegations of discriminatory comments, bullying and failure to challenge inappropriate behaviour. Ms Butterfield added 4 more allegations relating to her dealings with Mr Asghar. Putting all the allegations together, Ms Jenkins assessed the MM1 as containing allegations that were potentially gross misconduct. It is likely that Ms Jenkins did speak to Mr Asghar about Ms Wolfe’s or Ms Butterfield’s complaints about him as the DPS report referred to having an ‘early and detailed response from Mr Asghar’.

[274]We did not hear from Ms Wolfe, but we did have all the relevant paperwork in the bundle and Ms Jenkins gave live evidence about this. On 31 July 2023, the department who initially assessed the MM1 considered that three other officers who were present when Mr Asghar’s alleged discriminatory comments were made should also be cited and investigated for misconduct. The three officers were of Asian origin. Mr Asghar responded by asking why it was only the Asian officers who were present who were cited in this way, while the more senior White officers who were also present, were not going to be subjected to investigation. This point was taken on board by the Respondent, and all the officers who were present were subjected to some form of investigation.

[275]Ms Butterfield’s complaints about Mr Asghar were separated from Ms Wolfe’s and had not yet been dealt with by the date of this hearing.

[276]The report stated that the DPS conducted detailed investigations into each of Ms Wolfe’s complaints and concluded that there was no evidence to support the allegations. There was no case to answer in relation to each allegation. Mr Handley

[277]Once Ms Jenkins was promoted to the post of Chief Inspector, the Barking & Dagenham post became a substantive post and could no longer be held by an acting Inspector. This meant that the Respondent had to recruit a substantive Inspector to appoint to the substantive post. Mr Nixon had no choice in the matter as this was no longer an acting Inspector role that the Claimant could hold. This was so even though Ms Jenkins was not yet back at work as she had been promoted while on maternity leave.

[278]Mr Rolston and Ms Butterfield reminded Mr Nixon of the need to place the advert, but it was not their decision to do so.

[279]Ms Jenkins was promoted in September 2022. The advert should have been placed in October 2022. Mr Nixon delayed placing the advert for the post until 15 December 2022, to allow the Claimant time to complete projects that he was working on and most likely to give the Claimant time to find another acting Inspector role that he could slot into.

[280]When the Claimant accepted the appointment as acting Inspector at Barking & Dagenham, both the Claimant and Mr Nixon believed that he would be in the role until Ms Jenkins returned to work from maternity leave, possibly as late as the summer of 2023.

[281]The decision to make Ms Jenkins’ substantive role one that had to be filled by an Inspector, meant that it had to be offered openly to all substantive Inspectors to have the opportunity to apply for it. As Mr Nixon stated, substantive Inspectors have the right to try and apply for different roles which might have more development opportunities for them than their current role or they might simply want or need a change. A SNT Inspector role was a highly sought after position as once in that role, an officer can get good evidence that would assist in developing their career.

[282]On 16 December 2022, the Claimant saw the advert and contacted Mr Nixon to ask for clarity about his role. In his email he confirmed that they had already spoken about it and that Mr Nixon expected the whole process to take a while, which he had hoped would allow the Claimant to remain in the role until the summer of 2023. Mr Nixon had not guaranteed this as it was not in his power to do so. He responded to the Claimant to confirm that there would be new Sergeant roles coming up in the New Year so if nothing else, the Claimant would get one of those. He was also hoping that the Claimant would be successful in the recruitment process that was ongoing at the time. There was the added possibility, also outside of Mr Nixon’s control, that there could be a transfer into the BCU from another of the Respondent’s divisions to take up the role, which could also affect the timetable. The recruitment was for the specific role of Inspector at Barking & Dagenham SNT. It was not an open recruitment to be on a select list. It was only open to existing substantive Inspectors.

[283]Mr Ian Handley was appointed to the substantive Inspector role, the vacancy for which had been created by Ms Jenkins’ promotion to the role of Chief Inspector. The Claimant was told as soon as the decision was made, sometime in mid-January 2023. The Claimant was also told to expect Mr Handley to contact him to discuss the work he was currently engaged in and the handover of that work.

[284]The Claimant would not have been surprised when Mr Nixon informed the other SNT Inspectors as part of an update, at a meeting on 23 February 2023, that he was going to be replaced by Mr Handley as Barking & Dagenham Inspector. It was appropriate to let them know as they would have to work with whomever was filling the role. We find it likely that either the Claimant or Mr Nixon told the Inspectors that the Claimant was most likely going to the Sergeant role in Redbridge. It was not certain at that point what was going to happen, but this was the most likely outcome.

[285]Mr Handley was not confirmed in the post until the LRPM on 16 March 2023. The LRPM decided that he would be posted to the role on 1 May 2023 and that the Claimant would be posted to the Sergeant role in Havering.

[286]We find that Mr Nixon had been hoping and expecting the Claimant to be posted to another acting Inspector role from the list before or soon after that date, so that he did not have to revert to his substantive Sergeant role.

[287]Mr Nixon came out of the LRPM and contacted the Claimant to notify him that the appointment had been ratified and that the date was now fixed on 1 May 2023. It is unlikely that this was a surprise to the Claimant as he had been aware since January that Mr Handley had been appointed and that the LRPM would clarify the date of that appointment taking effect. Mr Nixon and the Claimant next met on 27 March when it was all discussed again. They also discussed the post that the Claimant would be taking up once he stepped down from the acting Inspector role. He was offered a Sergeant role in Havering but there was a Sergeant role in Redbridge, which he preferred.

[288]It was in this meeting that the Claimant told Mr Nixon that he had started an employment tribunal claim against the Respondent. He assured Mr Nixon that it was not against him but was about the promotion process. He did not mention discrimination. Mr Nixon was surprised but felt that this was an appropriate action for the Claimant to take if he was unhappy about the promotion process. He was not aware of the specific complaints or that the claim involved discrimination or any complaints against himself personally. He did not probe further as he wanted to respect the Claimant’s privacy. The Claimant did not give any more information.

[289]We have already made findings about the acting Inspector process that began around March 2023, just before the LRPM. The Claimant scored 9, which was the pass mark, and was successful. He was placed on the list as he could not do the EA400 role, which he was offered.

[290]In February 2023, Zed Asghar was promoted, leaving a vacancy for an Inspector in Havering SNT. This coincided with a reorganisation across the Respondent of the roles of Sergeant, Inspector and Superintendent. The Respondent carried out a review of the number of these roles, where they were based and what was the current need. While that was going on, it was unclear which roles would be covered by a substantive Inspector or an acting Inspector and which would be deleted from the structure. Mr Nixon told us that during this restructure, the Safer Schools Inspector role was eliminated. Mr Nixon was involved in these discussions. He prepared different organisational charts with variations on the numbers of Chief Inspectors, Inspectors and Sergeants and submitted those to Mr Bell and other senior officers for their consideration. An agreement on the new structure was not reached until the SLT meeting on 24 April 2023.

[291]In the interim, in the meeting on 27 March, Mr Nixon discussed with the Claimant the possibility of recruiting to an acting Inspector post in Havering. The Claimant expressed his preference for Redbridge as he lived in Havering. As the acting Inspector process was delayed and given the uncertainty of what was going to happen with the posts in Havering, Mr Nixon decided to cover all the jobs himself. This was also because, Mr Rolston had asked him not to act anyone up until the acting Inspector process was completed, due to complaints about fairness and transparency being raised and because he did not want to break continuity with community partners. Once the organisational chart was finalised and agreed, at the end of April, the SLT decided that the post in Havering would be for a substantive Inspector, which meant that the Claimant could not apply for it. Mr Nixon spoke to Mr Rolston about how he was going to fill the substantive role. He asked whether it was possible for him to use one of the unsuccessful candidates from the Barking & Dagenham Inspector process, which had recently completed in January, as the roles were identical. This was to save time and money in putting everyone through an identical process, a few months later. Mr Rolston agreed, and Mr Nixon offered the role to Charlie Routley who was a substantive Inspector.

[292]This meant that when it came time to recruit to the role at Havering, the Respondent had decided due to operational reasons that this was to be a substantive role and not an acting role. This meant that the Claimant could not be considered for it. It was not a role that was open to him.

[293]At the time, the Claimant was still in the Barking & Dagenham acting Inspector role as he continued to occupy that role until 1 May, when he ceased to be under Mr Nixon’s line management.

[294]This was all confirmed in the email dated 4 May which Mr Nixon sent to his team in which he stated that he was covering all the jobs.

[295]When the acting Inspector process was completed, Mr Routley was confirmed as the substantive Inspector at Havering and the start date was a few weeks away. In the circumstances, Mr Nixon did not bid for an acting Inspector for the role and continued in it, until Mr Routley started.

[296]Even if he had taken someone from the list of acting Inspectors produced at the end of the process, it is unlikely that it would have been the Claimant as although he hit the pass mark (9), he had one of the lowest scores. There were 5 others who scored higher than him who would have been offered the acting role before him.

[297]We find it unlikely that Mr Nixon held the post vacant for longer than necessary as while it was vacant, he had to cover all three jobs – the SNT Inspector role, the Town Centre Inspector and his own role, which was onerous. Postings to roles were done through the LRPM, which meant that Mr Nixon could not just unilaterally decide to post the Claimant to an acting Inspector role in Havering without going through the LRPM meeting or at least having a conversation with Mr Rolston. When he did do so, it was determined that it would be a substantive rather than an acting role. Richard Oldfield, Matt Chatters, Kim Hollenberg, Matt Feather and Reshma Sher

[298]The Claimant has referred to each of these officers as comparators in various parts of his claim. These are the findings we were able to make about each of them from the evidence. Richard Oldfield

[299]It is likely that Richard Oldfield acted up from July 2021 to November 2021. He acted up in more than one role. At some point he applied for and was appointed acting Inspector for the post that Kim Hollenberg had been covering. He took over when she went on maternity leave. At the time he began acting up, it was expected that it would be for a longer period as Mr Nixon thought that it might take a long time to get a substantive Inspector to replace him. However, various other changes in the recruitment to other posts meant that this acting posting was for a shorter period than originally planned. Mr Oldfield applied for and was successful and appointed to the role of acting Inspector on at least two occasions as shown by the documents supplied by the Claimant on pages 2171 and 2175.

[300]We find that it was not always possible to say exactly how long someone would be required to act up, as circumstances were always changing, and recruitment processes sometimes took longer or less time than expected.

[301]Mr Oldfield went back to being a Sergeant in November 2021 and was a street duties Sergeant for a while.

[302]He applied again in the acting up Inspector process in November 2021 and was told in March 2022 that he had been successful. He was posted to an EA400 role. He later left the BCU. Matt Chatters and Richard Pollock

[303]At the LRPM in May 2021, Mr Chatters was posted as an acting Inspector in the Operations Room Manager role having been successful in a previous acting Inspector process. He was the acting Inspector for Yasar Noori’s substantive role, which meant that he had to step back to being a Sergeant when Mr Noori returned to his substantive Inspector role on 23 November 2022.

[304]In February/March 2023, Simon Biggs, Matt Chatters, Reshma Sher, Richard Pollock and the Claimant, among others, all submitted applications in the corporate Sgt to Inspector process. Mr Chatters scored 8 and so failed to achieve the pass mark.

[305]Mr Chatters was again posted to the role of acting Inspector in the Redbridge SNT in January 2023. Having acted up previously, he was asked to act up in the Inspector role again, when Yasar Noori was acting up as Chief Inspector for 5 – 6 weeks while Mr Noori acted up in Ms Jackson’s position of Chief Inspector as she had to be away from work for that period. Ms Butterfield’s evidence was that his familiarity with the area and the local policing issues involved meant that the BCU did not have to spend much time on an induction or for him to get to know the role. The intention was for it to be a short-term role, while Mr Noori acted up. He had only been in the role for a few weeks when, on 25 January 2023, Yasar Noori asked him to step down on health grounds. Mr Noori notified Mr Nixon and Ms Butterfield of this decision. This was an urgent situation. When he was posted, it could not have been predicted that Mr Chatters would develop a serious health condition. A replacement had to be found quickly. Mr Noori asked Richard Pollock to step up into covering the acting Inspector role. This was an ad hoc appointment to cover an urgent situation.

[306]At the time, the Claimant was the acting Inspector for Barking & Dagenham, which meant that he was not available to step into this role. This was another acting Inspector role and therefore on the same level as the Claimant’s. If the Respondent had moved the Claimant to replace Mr Chatters, the role he was doing in Barking & Dagenham SNT would still have to be covered for a few months until Mr Handley took up the role on 1 May. In those circumstances, it did not make sense to move the Claimant. Also, the reorganisation and the 2023 acting Inspector process were both still running. The outcome of those processes would affect lots of posts, so it made sense to wait until the end before moving too many people. Richard Pollock was in the role for a short period before he resigned in March 2023. On 13 March 2023, Mr Nixon did consider the Claimant among others, as a possible replacement for Mr Pollock, as his note on page 898, made in preparation for a 1:1 meeting with Mr Pollock shows. The Claimant was one of four people who had passed the acting Inspector process. In the end, Mr Chatters was appointed as he was then physically well enough to resume the role he had been doing up until quite recently.

[307]From February 2023, the restructure of posts within the BCU also included a decision on how many substantive Inspector roles there should be. While that was happening, Mr Ross and Mr Holgate covered the acting Inspector role at Redbridge. Once it was decided that it would continue as an acting role, Reshma Sher was posted to it as she scored higher than the Claimant in the March 2023 acting Inspector select list recruitment process.

[308]While the restructure discussions were happening, Mr Nixon decided to cover the role of Inspector at Havering, which had arisen from Mr Asghar’s promotion. As already found above at times during this period, Mr Nixon was covering three roles as he was not given permission to recruit until the restructure was complete. At the end of the restructure, Mr Rolston decided that the role in Havering should be substantive. This meant that the Claimant could not be considered for that role. Charlie Routley was appointed as a substantive Inspector.

[309]By March 2023, there were no acting Inspector roles left, the Claimant was due to revert to his substantive role as a Sergeant. There were substantive Sergeant roles available in both Redbridge and Havering. On 21 March 2023, Mr Nixon called the Claimant and discussed this with him. The Claimant expressed a preference for the Redbridge Sgt role as opposed to the one in Havering. The LRPM had already decided that he should be posted to Havering. Given his preference, Mr Nixon emailed the LRPM on the same day, and asked for this to be formally changed so that the Claimant could go to Redbridge. Mr Nixon confirmed this to the Claimant in an email in April. Matt Feather

[310]Mr Feather passed the Acting Inspector process in May 2022, alongside the Claimant. As already stated above, there were two roles available at the time, the Partnership role and the maternity cover role for Ms Jenkins. After discussion with Mr Nixon the Claimant took the maternity cover and Matt Feather took the Partnership role. As the Clamant scored the highest in that process, he had been offered the option of doing either role. He took the maternity cover role as he believed that it would last for a longer period.

[311]Mr Feather had to re-apply, like everyone else in the November 2022 acting Inspector process. He spoke to the Claimant and indicated that he did not want to do so. He was told to do so by Louise Jackson. The Claimant and Matt Feather were two of the 15 officers who applied to be put on that select list. Mr Feather scored 8 and the Claimant scored 9. The Claimant passed. The grid indicated that the pass mark was 11 but in his email to the Claimant dated 9 May 2023, Mr Byrne confirmed that it was 9. In the end, everyone was allowed to continue acting as no one was displaced as a result of this process. Mr Feather also continued in the acting Inspector role because of personal issues with Ms Jackson.

[312]When the role came to an end, Mr Feather returned to being a Sergeant on 23 September 2023 when he left the acting Inspector role to take over the Youth Offending Team Sergeant role. Kim Hollenberg

[313]Ms Hollenberg was the Claimant’s line manager in 2021, while she was acting Inspector, and she supported his application to be on the acting Inspector select list.

[314]Sometime in 2021, Lee Canter, substantive Inspector went on long-term sick. Ms Hollenberg was appointed acting Inspector to cover his post. It is likely that towards the end of the year, she went on maternity leave. It is likely that she had already passed her Part 1 in 2020 and at some point, she became eligible to apply for a substantive post and did so successfully. While she was on maternity leave, there was still a need for someone to cover the post so, according to the ET3, the acting Inspector post was subject to competitive assessment and moderation. Richard Oldfield was the highest scoring candidate, so he was assigned to that post as an acting Inspector. It is likely that once Mr Canter retired, the post became a substantive post, which meant that Mr Oldfield could no longer continue to occupy it. Yassar Noori successfully applied for and was appointed as Inspector in the substantive post.

[315]We saw an email in January 2023 referring to the need to find Ms Hollenberg a substantive Inspector post on her return from maternity leave. Reshma Sher

[316]While there was no challenge to the Claimant’s assumptions that his other comparators were white, it was agreed between the parties that Ms Sher was an Asian Sikh female.

[317]Ms Sher applied to be on the select list for acting Inspector and acting Detective Inspector in March 2023 and was successful, as was the Claimant. She also applied in the corporate Sergeant to Inspector process in 2023. Her scores were higher than the Claimant’s for the acting Inspector list as she scored 11, while he scored 9, and she was appointed to the acting Inspector post at Redbridge from 22 May 2023. She had also passed her Part I exam.

[318]The LRPM held in May 2023 confirmed her appointment as acting Inspector. It also confirmed that the Claimant was to be offered the EA400 role, which was also an acting Inspector role. Ms Butterfield had telephoned Ms Sher earlier, to ask her what her preferences were for her appointment. Although the Claimant was in her chain of line management, she did not telephone the Claimant in a similar way. We do not know what difference the telephone call made to the likelihood of her appointment to this role if she was already being considered for it.

[319]There was only 1 vacancy for an acting Inspector in the Safer Neighbourhood Team. That was the role at Redbridge that Ms Sher was offered. She became the Claimant’s line manager later in 2023, when he returned to the role of Sergeant.

[320]Ms Kaur included news about Ms Sher’s appointment in her email dated 17 May, in which she also included the Claimant’s news. Ms Kaur

[321]Jasvinder Kaur arrived at the EA BCU around 24 April 2023. She became the Claimant’s second line manager in place of Mr Nixon when the Claimant moved on to his substantive Sergeant role, once his acting Inspector at Barking & Dagenham SNT came to an end because of Ms Jenkins’ promotion. Ms Kaur had a short handover meeting with Mr Nixon in early May. It was a general handover and not a meeting specifically about the Claimant.

[322]Mr Nixon told Ms Kaur that the Claimant had been an effective Inspector, but he felt the Claimant needed to work on his people skills. Also, that the Claimant would take remarks out of context and sometimes argue with his peers. We find that this was his honest assessment of working with and supporting the Claimant over the time that they had worked together.

[323]That assessment aligned with Mr Nixon’s evenly balanced assessment of the Claimant as written in his 3 A’s Performance Development Review which covered the year April 2022 – March 2023. In the written review Mr Nixon graded the Claimant’s performance as ‘good’ and stated that he had: ‘delivered on the performance framework set for 2022-3 and LBBD delivered by far the most closure orders compared to the other Boroughs.’ He also remarked that ‘His strengths in being willing to make difficult decisions around staff in the public interest are offset with his leadership style which some of his staff find blunt. He has developed from an early error in delivering negative news via email. He could develop further by working on his ability to have difficult conversations in a way that builds his relationship with staff.’ This shows that his assessment of the Claimant was the same as it had been when he completed the performance review. It had not changed because of the ET1 claim or because of any other issue.

[324]The Claimant’s grievance had been submitted on 11 May. It is unlikely that Mr Nixon was aware of the grievance when, on the following day, 12 May, he sent Ms Kaur the briefing document which we had in the bundle at page 1130. Ms Kaur had not asked for this. In it, Mr Nixon did not refer to the Claimant’s grievance. We find that this document simply set out a timeline as far as Mr Nixon was aware and it was his attempt to provide Ms Kaur with a history of his line management of the Claimant. There were no negative opinions about the Claimant expressed in that document and no untruths. Ms Kaur did not recall reading that document since she was very busy, having just taken up this new role.

[325]At the time, Mr Nixon was still not aware that the Claimant’s ET1 concerned race discrimination. He believed that it was to do with the promotion process. It is unlikely that he was even aware that he was named in the claim. Ms Kaur asked him about allegations of discrimination that the Claimant had raised with Mr Bell and other senior managers but as Mr Nixon had not been involved with them, there was little he could tell her. She did not agree with the Claimant’s Counsel that Mr Nixon had tried to paint the Claimant in a bad light, and she certainly did not take any information that he gave her in that way.

[326]He told Ms Kaur that he had told the Claimant not to ‘stick his oar into his wife’s performance matters’. We find that this was put in a colloquial manner but was essentially good advice. Both Mr Bell and Mr Nixon stated that their partners were also Met employees and that they would not think of getting involved if there were any discipline or any other issues between their partners and the Respondent.

[327]Ms Kaur had a limited discussion with Ms Butterfield, which was part of a general briefing about the BCU. As Ms Butterfield was her line manager, Ms Kaur felt that it was important to find out what her expectations were of her, as early as possible. She did tell her a bit about the Claimant. Ms Butterfield was busy and intended to provide further information later but that never happened. Ms Butterfield did not give Ms Kaur any negative information on the Claimant and Ms Kaur also wanted to start on a clean slate. Ms Butterfield mentioned that there were a variety of challenges in the BCU but did not refer to anyone in particular.

[328]Ms Butterfield told Ms Kaur that the Claimant was keen to be promoted to an Inspector role and that he was disappointed in this not having happened to date. She did not tell her that the Claimant was difficult or problematic in any way. She informed her that he had been offered the EA400 role as an outcome to the most recent process but had not taken up that offer because the role was not compatible with the Claimant’s occupational health restrictions. They were not meeting to talk specifically about the Claimant so this was most likely part of a briefing on all the members of the team that she would be taking on.

[329]From her discussions with Ms Butterfield, Ms Kaur understood that the Claimant was looking for promotion, so she reached out and offered Mr Bell her practical support for the Claimant as she and Mr Bell were friends.

[330]Ms Kaur became aware that there were a few Muslim men at this BCU who had raised grievances and complaints about discrimination. She offered her support to managers to see if there was a different way to approach matters and to support people of colour in the organisation. She felt that it was her duty as a senior leader and a person of colour to try to help others. She was not told about any specific complaints or any particular person.

[331]On 10 May 2023, Ms Kaur was made aware that the Claimant was on the rota to do the late turn duty as EA2L, on the following day. She knew that the Claimant also had a GP appointment on the same day and expected the outcome of the doctor’s appointment to outline what support the Claimant would need at work. She emailed the Claimant at midday to ask if he would be available to cover his EA2L shift. The Claimant replied to say that he thought it unlikely as he had been prescribed medication due to stress. He confirmed the GP appointment and hoped that he would be given a fit note for the Respondent. Ms Kaur stated that from the handover, she believed that he was back at work. She apologised if she had misunderstood. She asked the Claimant to liaise with Mr Ross after his GP appointment, if he required a referral to occupational health (OH) or any other type of support. Mr Ross was the Claimant’s direct line manager. Ms Kaur was two levels of management above the Claimant. It was her understanding that it would usually be the responsibility of the first line manager to complete an OH referral for one of their direct reports. As Ms Kaur was new in post she did not want to be seen as undermining Mr Ross by doing this.

[332]In response, the Claimant stated the following: ‘As in the previous email, I’m not comfortable to discuss my personal matters with Insp Ross as he is unaware of my ET or mental health issues as a result. I do not want these matter discussed with people who do not need to know. This will all need to be included within the OH referral so they have a full picture and I would rather not discuss them with him and would feel more comfortable if yourself or Mr Nixon completed this. I will email you following my GP appointment.’

[333]In response, Ms Kaur stated as follows: ‘I am here to support you; in the absence of a A/Insp on the team for SNT I may have to default the OH to Insp Ross and/or you can self-refer? Just like me Insp Ross is not aware of the circumstances so in terms of who completes the OH referral does not matter; but for ease and to mitigate the risk for you not having to repeat your circumstances to new people which may add to your stress CI Nixon may opt to make the referral on this occasion as a one off as he is aware of your circumstances. We shall review your circumstances post the Dr appointment to discuss your role to ensure you are supported, valued and given something meaningful to do, however until you have sought medical advice I do not want to risk over loading you with work; I shall be advised by OH.’

[334]She copied the email to Mr Nixon. Ms Kaur felt that as she was the new manager, it would be better if the OH referral was done by senior managers with whom the Claimant already had relationships, such as Mr Ross or Mr Nixon. She had a large team and a busy operational role. She did not see the harm in referring the Claimant back to those managers, especially as she was not his direct line manager, and she did not have any personal knowledge of the Claimant’s health issues. She was simply asking him to follow the usual process of asking the line manager to make an OH referral.

[335]Ms Kaur forwarded the Claimant’s email to OSE and asked them to remove him from CARMs for the duty on the following day that he could not do. She did this because it was a quick way of providing CARMs with the reason for removing him from the duty without having to summarise what he said in the email, but it was unlikely that she appreciated the extent of the personal information in it. In her email she stated to OSE that these were confidential matter. She did not expect that the OSE would spread the Claimant’s information around since they frequently had access to officers’ personal information.

[336]Nevertheless, the Claimant was unhappy about this. He emailed Ms Jenkins, who was also unaware of the Claimant’s medical issues, and asked her to complete the OH referral form. In his email to Ms Jenkins, he also complained about Ms Kaur. Ms Jenkins notified the OSE of the data breach in respect of the Claimant’s confidential matters and the email from Ms Kaur was deleted.

[337]The Claimant did not tell Ms Kaur that he had asked Ms Jenkins to make the OH referral nor did he tell Ms Jenkins that Ms Kaur had advised waiting until the outcome of the GP appointment the following day, before making the referral.

[338]This meant that when the Claimant sent her the GP fit note on the following day, Ms Kaur was still of the belief that she needed to organise the OH referral. She told the Claimant that she would ask Mr Ross to do it and advised the Claimant that he could also self-refer. The Claimant responded to ask: ‘In regards to the OH referral, I cannot self-refer. This option is only available for counselling services and therefore the OH referral must be completed by my line manager. I am not sure why you are not able to complete this?’

[339]The Claimant was correct when he stated that he could not self-refer as that was for other services and not for OH, but Ms Kaur was not aware of that at the time. Also, she became aware that even before they had this exchange of emails, the Claimant had already asked Ms Jenkins to do the referral for him. When she found this out, she considered that this was extremely disrespectful of him. She told him so in an email, which she copied to Ms Butterfield, on 11 May. In her email she misquoted something the Claimant stated in the earlier email as ‘why can’t you fill out the form’. She copied Ms Butterfield as she was her line manager, and she wanted her to be aware of what was happening. She did not do so to give the impression that the Claimant was being difficult. Ms Kaur and the Claimant had not yet met at the time of this email exchange, and she knew that Ms Butterfield was more familiar with the Claimant. She felt that the Claimant did not trust her.

[340]She did not accurately quote the Claimant as he had said, ‘I am not sure why you are not able to complete this?’ as opposed to ‘why can’t you fill out the form’, but we find that even if she had put the exact words that he used in the email, it was unlikely to significantly change the meaning or give such a different impression of him than the way she put it. Although it was in quotation marks it was not a direct quote. The Claimant’s email had been a direct challenge to Ms Kaur for referring him to someone else for assistance with the OH referral.

[341]The Respondent’s policy stated that: “Line managers (or in exceptional circumstances, an alternative or second line manager) should complete the occupational health referral.”

[342]Ms Butterfield had told Ms Kaur about her photograph being defaced. Her photo on the wall in a police station had been defaced by someone putting a Bhindi on her face, which she felt was an insult and reflective of difficult historical relations between people of Muslim and Sikh backgrounds. She therefore felt vulnerable and unsettled in the BCU thereafter and for example, would not leave her handbag lying around when she left the room. She had successfully managed Muslim officers in other settings before, and as a serving officer in the Respondent for 28 years, had never experienced this in her whole career. She found it quite upsetting.

[343]In her interview conducted as part of the investigation into the Claimant’s grievance, Ms Kaur stated that she got the impression that the Claimant did not like being managed by a woman and especially a Sikh female. The Claimant’s evidence was that she made that comment as victimisation and in retaliation to his grievance and the employment tribunal claim. We find that there was no mention of Ms Kaur in the Claimant’s first ET1 claim form or supporting document and that although Ms Kaur was aware that he had brought a claim she was not aware that it was about discrimination or the details of it. She was not part of the complaint as she had not had anything to do with the Claimant’s applications to the select lists for acting Inspector posts.

[344]Ms Kaur did not have the power to put the Claimant in an acting role. She also did not want to interfere in decisions that had been made before she was appointed.

[345]On 17 May, following the LRPM that day on which postings were confirmed, Ms Kaur emailed all Sgts under her management to inform them of changes in the department. This was her attempt to show that she was on-top of what was happening, was becoming familiar with everyone and was taking ownership of the team. She started off the email by stating: ‘I am proud to share that in the short time I have been here I have heard so many positive stories about the work taking place in Redbridge SNT and TCT. Keep up the great work. I am here to support you.’

[346]She then went through some changes in personnel. She firstly referred to Reshma Sher stepping up as acting Inspector from 22 May, congratulated her and referred to this being the result of a fair and transparent process. She then referred to the acting police Sergeant who would take her place in her substantive Sgt role. Next, she referred to the Claimant and the fact that he had also made the select list but ‘for reasons you are already aware of’ the Claimant would remain in a Sgt role. We find that this was not an attempt to engender gossip or to embarrass the Claimant. It was her attempt to keep his information confidential and not to draw a negative focus to what had happened. It was a fact that the Claimant had made the select list. There was no new information in this email and what was said was factually accurate. Instead of his colleagues wondering or gossiping about what had happened, here was their manager and senior officer stating that it was all in hand and she identified what he will be doing in the interim. This should have silenced any confusion. She also congratulated him.

[347]Ms Kaur’s email on 17 May did not objectively give any information beyond what the Claimant’s colleagues already knew. She could not and did not explain about the offer of the EA400 and it would have been inappropriate for her to do so. It would have involved discussing the Claimant’s health, which he had only a week before been upset about her inadvertently sharing with the OSE department. She could not give any other details. She also could not leave him out of the email as it is likely that he would have complained about being left out. She simply indicated that although he had achieved the select list, he had not yet achieved a posting and that it was likely that one would happen soon. In the interim, he would be a Sgt. This was accurate information.

[348]On 24 May 2023, Ms Kaur wrote to the Claimant to invite him to a meeting on 6 June to discuss any issues that he wanted to raise with her. She also invited Reshma Sher to the meeting as she was going to be the Claimant’s direct line manager. In the email where she first floated the idea of them meeting, she also said to the Claimant that he could choose to only meet with Ms Sher, if he wanted, as she was going to be his direct line manager. The Claimant indicated that he wanted to meet her as he would not want to pass up any opportunities. Ms Kaur included Ms Sher in the meeting out of courtesy to Ms Sher as he was her direct report. The Claimant was aware that Ms Sher had been sent a calendar invite on the Respondent’s systems and enquired why she had been invited. The meeting was shifted to 13 June.

[349]This was the Claimant and Ms Kaur’s first face to face meeting. At the meeting the Claimant had an opportunity to set out why he thought that he had been unfairly treated by Ms Kaur and more broadly, by the Respondent. Ms Kaur explained that she considered that the emails the Claimant sent her were angry. It is likely that this was a reference to the emails about the OH referral. Ms Sher joined via MS Teams. Ms Sher was also a Sikh woman.

[350]Ms Kaur set up this meeting to give the Claimant some support and some coaching about a different way to approach any difficulties he might be having with management. She offered the Claimant advice and support on seeking promotion and also on dealing with colleagues, and managers and with what he perceived as race discrimination. The Claimant decided that he was not going to adopt her approach to dealing with such issues as he preferred to address issues at work head-on.

[351]Although she had met other Sergeants with their teams, we find it likely that the Claimant was the only one she had taken the time to meet like this. She told him that Ms Sher was there because she was his line manager. She was not prepared to challenge decisions that had been made before her appointment, but she thought that she might be able to provide some support to him in the future. During the meeting Ms Sher was called away as there was a safety critical issue happening in the community that she needed to attend to. She left the meeting to deal with that issue. We find that during the meeting their phones were placed on the table and Ms Kaur wondered whether the Claimant was recording her, but she chose to focus on their discussion and not to think or ask about it. The Claimant confirmed in evidence that he had not recorded the meeting.

[352]After the meeting, the Claimant sent a detailed email to Ms Kaur, recording in writing, each of the points made in their discussion. This unsettled her as she had hoped that the Claimant would have taken it as a meeting to try to build a relationship between them rather than a formal management meeting.

[353]It is unlikely that Ms Kaur confirmed at the meeting that she had been told incorrect things about the Claimant. Ms Kaur denied saying this to the Claimant. In the email he sent to her afterwards, he recorded that he had told her at the meeting that he felt that she had a preconceived perception of him, but we find it unlikely that she said that. Although Ms Kaur knew about the Claimant’s complaint to the employment tribunal, she had not drawn any negative conclusions from that. She told us that she was aware that it was likely to be stressful to pursue a tribunal claim. She stated many times during her evidence in the hearing that she would usually make her own judgments about people and that she took people as she found them. She thought that it was possible to be misunderstood and that she wanted to meet the Claimant, offer him some coaching and support and see if she could help him realise his ambitions.

[354]We find that the Claimant was posted to the role of a Sergeant from 1 May, at Redbridge, following him expressing a preference for it. There was no other acting Inspector role in existence at that time that he could have been posted to as Reshma Sher had been posted to the only one at Redbridge as she had scored higher than him in the acting exercise.

[355]The Claimant was asked to report to Redbridge from 1 May but as found above, by 12 May he had still not yet paraded with his colleagues. It was also the case that due to shortages of staff and other matters he had been asked to stand in for acting Inspectors on the odd day. It was one such day that he had been unable to do on 11 May. Ms Butterfield emailed him and insisted that he move to Redbridge as he had been assigned, as it was preventing other moves from taking place.

[356]The Respondent did not insist that he share the role with the acting Sergeant who was at Redbridge. The Respondent allowed the Claimant time to handover to Mr Handley and there was time for the acting Sergeant at Redbridge to handover to him. We saw no emails in which he was asked to share the role with the acting Sgt and find that he was not asked to do so.

[357]If the acting Sergeant who was in the role was having a hard time letting go and moving back to their role as a police constable, the Claimant had the power to order him back to his PC role. The Claimant was the senior officer, which meant that it was within his power as the substantive Sergeant to deal with this. The Claimant would have been that person’s supervisor. If there had been an issue, he should have ended their acting up and taken over the team.

[358]The vacancy in Havering was for a substantive Inspector, which meant that the Claimant could not apply for or be placed in the role. The Claimant’s complaints and grievances

[359]On 4 May 2023 the Claimant sent the Respondent a complaint. He was asked to complete a form and resubmit it as a grievance with the grievance management team, which included some of the allegations of discrimination and victimisation from his employment tribunal complaint. He also had a conversation with Ms Jenkins a couple of days later, on 6 May, the contents of which he confirmed in an email on 7 May. The Claimant raised allegations of discrimination within the acting up process and how it operated at the EA BCU. He considered that jobs were afforded to white officers without due process and that black and minority ethnic officers were having to go through extra hoops to get such positions. He asked her to keep it confidential and referred to particular officers who he considered had been victims of discrimination in addition to himself. Ms Jenkins promised to speak to Mr Bell and get back to the Claimant in a few days.

[360]On 9 May, Ms Jenkins spoke to Ms Butterfield about the Claimant’s complaint, and we have made findings about that above.

[361]On 10 May she contacted the Claimant to let him know that she had spoken to Mr Bell, and he had advised her to refer the matter to NE PSU to investigate the complaint. The matter was passed to acting Superintendent Lisa Parker from the NE PSU. Ms Jenkins asked this BCU to conduct a peer misconduct review.

[362]The Respondent extracted the allegations against Ms Butterfield and Mr Nixon and treated them as allegations of misconduct which needed to be investigated separately.

[363]The resubmitted grievance was received on 12 May. On 13 May the Claimant emailed again to expand on his list of desired outcomes, which included that he should be given an acting Inspector role on the SNT, that he be provided with a mentor and with support for promotion and various demands relating to Ms Kaur and Ms Butterfield.

[364]The Claimant was told that he had to go through an informal resolution process by meeting with a Grievance Informal Resolution Champion (IRC), before his grievance would be submitted for a full investigation. This was a mandatory part of the Respondent’s process.

[365]On 31 May, the Claimant met with Inspector Kamran Qureshi, the IRC assigned to his case, to go through his concerns and the solutions he sought. Mr Qureshi stated in his report that he spoke to Ms Jenkins about it as he was unable to speak to Mr Rolston. Ms Jenkins had not been at the LRPM on 17 May. She told him what had been reported to her by Mr Sanderson, which was that the Claimant had been offered the EA400 role but had turned it down. The Claimant was unhappy with that characterisation. We note that at page 1188 of the bundle, the IRC stated that “I have liaised with EA BCU re Acting rank. I understand the officer was offered an Acting Insp position as EA400 however he turned this down. The officer accept this was turned down as he has OH restrictions. …. Due to the outcomes sought which are out of the remit of IRC i.e change of promotion process and the above, this grievance hasn’t been resolved at the IRC stage.”

[366]Once Mr Qureshi decided that it was not possible to resolve the Claimant’s complaints informally, he produced a report to say so. Ms Jenkins then passed the complaint and the Claimant’s emails and any notes that she may have made from the conversations she had with Messrs Sanderson and Rolston to Lisa Parker in the NorthEast BCU. Ms Parker passed them to Lewis Watson, who was the relevant PSU officer in that BCU.

[367]The IRC referred the matter back to the grievance management team for the formal process.

[368]The Respondent has a different procedure for reviewing allegations of misconduct. Those were handled by the PSU who investigated public complaints and misconduct allegations which could include anything that was capable of a written warning; and conducted other tasks such as reviewing officers’ external business interests. The PSU also dealt with MM1s, which were misconduct reporting and assessment forms. They would conduct investigations based on anonymous reports about an officer’s wrongdoing. They would firstly do some basic fact finding to decide whether there was any indication that a serving officer had behaved in a way that would justify the bringing of misconduct proceedings and therefore needed to be reported and assessed on an MM1 by the appropriate authority.

[369]Ms Parker delegated the complaint to Lewis Watson in the PSU for consideration. Mr Watson was an experienced police officer and had been promoted to Inspector in January 2020. He joined the NE BCU headquarters in March 2021 and was part of the PSU for the next three years. It is likely that he was therefore experienced in conducting investigations. He was asked to conduct a misconduct review into allegations raised by the Claimant as part of his employment tribunal claim and his conversation with Ms Jenkins. The Claimant’s complaints mainly revolved around his applications for promotion and opportunities for acting up. Mr Watson and Ms Parker were both in the NE BCU, which was considered a ‘buddy’ BCU to the East Area.

[370]Attached to the Claimant’s complaint was his ET1 form, the supporting documents, the Claimant’s email to Mr Byrne dated 13 March 2023, Mr Nixon’s email to the Claimant dated 2 May 2023, the Claimant’s email to Ms Jenkins in which he summarised a telephone conversation he had with her on 7 May 2023; and his complaint dated 6 May 2023. The last two documents contained allegations of discrimination. He also had emails from Ms Jenkins in which she explained the local acting up process.

[371]Mr Watson understood that he was conducting a misconduct review which was basically to triage the complaints and assess if there was any indication that a serving officer may have committed a criminal offence or behaved in a way that would justify bringing disciplinary proceedings against them. If he concluded that there had been such conduct, he would report the matter for a severity assessment on a form MM1. It was not his role, as far as he understood it, to conduct a wholesale enquiry into the wider behaviour of the SLT at the EA BCU towards its Asian officers. He understood the Claimant’s complaint to be mainly about two senior officers, namely, Ms Butterfield and Mr Nixon. Also, about being overlooked for an acting role in favour of a white officer, namely, Matt Feather and his application for promotion being scored negatively by Ms Butterfield, as an act of discrimination. He had to consider these complaints by only looking at the documents in his possession, or as he put it, the ‘readily available material’. His understanding was that under the Police Conduct Regulations, his role was not to conduct a full investigation. Once a full investigation begins, there are specific processes in those regulations which regulate how the investigation proceeds and which protect those being investigated.

[372]In his response, Mr Watson concluded that there was no indication of misconduct by Ms Butterfield or Mr Nixon and no indication that any police officer mentioned in the claim had behaved in a way to justify disciplinary proceedings. He had not made a detailed assessment of each promotion process because he believed that he would be criticised for doing so as he lacked the prerequisite training to be able to make decisions on individual applications and decide whether the right scores had been given for the Claimant’s answers. He did not want to assume the role of an assessor. He was also mindful of the fact that the Claimant’s application had been scored not only by Ms Butterfield but that there had been a panel of senior officers involved in the process. He considered that neither the panel nor the BCU Commander, when he considered the Claimant’s appeal, had identified any discrimination or disparity in the process.

[373]Mr Watson recommended some changes to the acting up policy, such as adding an equality impact statement. He also felt that the corporate promotion process could be made fairer, by adding peer reviews by another SLT or having anonymised applications. These ideas were not specific to the EA BCU, and he felt they could be implemented elsewhere in the Respondent.

[374]As for the specifics of each of the processes the Claimant complained about, Mr Watson felt that as the Claimant had already issued his complaint of discrimination in the employment tribunal and as it covered the same issues, it was appropriate for the detailed analysis of the recruitment processes to be left to the tribunal as it would have the benefit of full disclosure by the parties, would hear all the witnesses and be able to consider whether there had been wrongdoing on an organisational level whereas he had been restricted by the Respondent’s process to only looking at misconduct by individuals.

[375]When he reported his findings to Ms Jenkins on 16 May, Mr Watson added that if it did not already have this, he would invite the EA BCU to have in place an appropriate local acting up policy, an equality impact assessment and a review of acting positions to demonstrate organisational learning/improvements.

[376]On the same day, Ms Jenkins forwarded Mr Watson’s findings to Mr Rolston and Mr Bell. When she provided Ms Jenkins with the result of Mr Watson’s assessment, Ms Parker reiterated Mr Watson’s recommendation that the policy for acting up positions should have an equality impact assessment. She stated that her BCU had one and could assist with this, if required. It was Ms Jenkins’ evidence that after review, Mr Rolston and Mr Sanderson agreed that Mr Watson’s recommendations were already in place on EA BU and that the acting up process already covered all the points Mr Watson made. We were not shown an equality impact assessment which formed part of the local acting up policy.

[377]Ms Jenkins asked Mr Watson to send his findings directly to the Claimant, which he did by email on 16 May 2023. To be transparent, Mr Watson informed the Claimant that in the past he had previously been at the EA BCU, as had his wife. He also informed us that in his career, he has reported misconduct against senior white officers on several occasions and had no problem doing so.

[378]He gave the Claimant advice on how to take matters further with the DPS as there was no opportunity to appeal against his conclusions. Mr Watson also reported to the DPS that he had done this review and asked for a record to be created to log it. His report was reviewed by an Inspector who confirmed that there was no indication of misconduct.

[379]As there was no misconduct identified, Mr Watson did not send the complaint for a severity assessment and no MM1 was filed. The Claimant was unhappy about this and wrote several emails to Mr Watson about it. He had been expecting Mr Watson to interview him about his allegations. He also had been expecting him to be in contact with him as he said that his allegations had changed since he presented his first employment tribunal complaint. Mr Watson would not have been aware of this. He explained to the Claimant the difference between a misconduct review and a misconduct investigation, which he had not been asked to conduct. The Claimant was advised that he could contact the DPS directly and Mr Watson provided him with an email address for him to report wrongdoing. He also reported his communication with the Claimant to Ms Jenkins. Ms Jenkins did not tell Mr Watson that she had told Ms Butterfield about the complaint against her.

[380]On 27 September 2023, Ms Leighan Robson was assigned the Claimant’s first grievance to triage. She considered all the allegations in the Claimant’s employment tribunal claim form as his first grievance. She was aware that the Claimant was making complaints of discrimination. Ms Robson was an experienced grievance assessor.

[381]The Respondent had a grievance management team which was responsible for managing the grievances for the entire Respondent. In 2023, the Respondent had six grievance assessors. In addition to the grievance assessors, there were three admin staff, an admin team leader, a grievance management team leader and the Head of the Unit. Another admin person joined the unit in March 2024 and another assessor joined in February 2024.

[382]Once a grievance was submitted to the team, it was first triaged which meant that one of the assessors would review it and decide whether it fell within the scope of the grievance process. If it did, it was first referred for informal resolution unless there had already been an attempt locally to resolve the issue. If informal resolution was not successful, then the grievance would proceed to stage 1 where a grievance assessor would be assigned to it. Assessors could be voluntary and do this in addition to their day job. Voluntary assessors did not usually deal with allegations of discrimination or where there was a high risk of the matter ending up in an employment tribunal. The other type of assessor was a grievance assessor, who would usually be allocated high risk cases. The assessor would speak to the relevant parties and write up their assessment in a report. The report was then quality assured by the grievance management team and passed to admin who would disseminate it to the relevant parties, including the subjects of the grievance and the aggrieved. If the aggrieved person did not accept the outcome of the grievance, they would have 14 days to appeal. The appeal would be triaged and then looked at by an appeal assessor.

[383]The Respondent’s grievance procedure stated that it could not be used to address concern about the interpretation or application of a policy as the aggrieved officer would be able to address that by appealing the initial decision. Mr Watson’s live evidence was that the grievance policy was the correct policy to apply where there was an issue of fairness and no right of appeal, such as the application of the acting up process.

[384]Ms Robson did not know the Claimant at the time she was asked to quality assure his first grievance. She knew that he had complained of discrimination. She also knew about the employment tribunal claim as the Claimant referred to it in the grievance. She may not have had it at the forefront of her mind when she was assessing the grievance. She was not directly told of the Claimant’s conversations and email exchange with Ms Jenkins on 6 and 7 May but she would have known that from the paperwork. We find it unlikely that Ms Robson knew anything about the meetings the officers of ethnic minority background had with Mr Clayman. She did not work in the EA BCU. She was also not aware of the meeting that the Claimant and other officers had with Mr Bell on 6 June 2023.

[385]The grievance was allocated to another grievance assessor, Laura Cormack for her to investigate. She either corresponded by email or met and took statements from the Claimant, Mr Asghar, Mr Rolston, Ms Jenkins, Ms Sher, Mr Noori, Mr Sanderson, Ms Kaur, Ms Butterfield, Mr Sanderson, Mr Nixon and Mr Byrne.

[386]At the end of her investigation, Ms Cormack wrote a detailed report, which was sent to the Claimant on 20 December. In it she set out her findings and went through each aspect of the grievance. She was unable to uphold any of the Claimant’s allegations. Nevertheless, she made some recommendations at the end of her report, which were: - that there should be mediation between the Claimant and Ms Butterfield, that the Claimant should take up Ms Kaur’s offer of mentorship and the offer of 360 feedback; that internal acting up processes should be run at the same time each year and that posts that become temporarily vacant should not be filled by a substantive officer. Also, that instructions should be sent to all staff on booking extended annual leave.

[387]The outcome email to the Claimant confirmed that these were recommendations and were therefore not mandatory. This meant that the Respondent would need to record its rationale for deciding not to implement them, but non-implementation of a recommendation would not be a valid basis for another grievance as they were discretionary. The Claimant was informed that the grievance was now closed.

[388]The Claimant’s second grievance was submitted on 10 December 2023. In it he alleged that preferential treatment had been given to white officers who were less qualified. There were two specific issues raised by the Claimant in this grievance. The first was that even though the stated practice was that when an officer is acting up, the person who covers their substantive role should also be acting up, he knew of at least two instances where this was not the case. The second was that although he had passed the internal selection process in May 2023, and was first on the select list for any acting Inspector vacancy, he had only been offered roles as EA400 and duty officer which he could not do due to OH restrictions whereas white officers who had not gone through the same process, such as Wayne Fermor, Matt Parish and Jasbir Randhawa had been in acting up in roles that he could do, for a long time. The Claimant complained that they had not passed the acting Inspector selection process and that two of them had not passed the Inspector exam. The Claimant stated that his desired outcome was to be treated fairly and given equal opportunities and to be offered an acting Inspector role.

[389]This grievance was also allocated to Ms Robson to triage. As part of her process, Ms Robson asked Ms Jenkins to provide her with some information about the posting of the specific officers mentioned by the Claimant, to acting Inspector roles. She did so because Ms Jenkins was the single point of contact for EA grievances. Ms Robson met Ms Jenkins for the first time in the Tribunal hearing. In order to be able to answer Ms Robson’s questions, Ms Jenkins liaised with Mr Sanderson and Mr Mahmood, who oversaw the acting up process.

[390]We had copies of the correspondence in the bundle between Ms Jenkins and those officers. They were in the best position to explain these appointments to her. She passed their explanations on to the Claimant.

[391]The information she provided was as follows: - Matt Parish had been performing the role of acting Inspector during two periods, both of which had been as holiday cover for Inspector Bacon. As they were for short periods of time, the Respondent had considered but decided not to use the select list and instead, treated it as an ad hoc posting, on each occasion. He covered for periods of 6 and then 5 weeks. Mr Parish had some familiarity with local operational and partnership challenges which made it imperative that he continue to provide continuation of cover as having someone new could damage existing relationships with partners and risk reputational damage to the Respondent. During the second period, the Respondent was in the process of removing Inspector Bacon to another neighbourhood, so it made sense rather than let him return after annual leave and then transfer him and leave another gap a short time after; to replace him with a permanent, substantive Inspector straightaway. Carol Wheeden was appointed to take up the substantive post but for operational reasons she could not be released from her previous role until 27 December so Mr Parish acted up until then.

[392]By the time Mr Mahmood provided this information, Mr Parish was no longer performing the role of an acting Inspector.

[393]Mr Sanderson provided information about Wayne Fermor and Jas Randhawa.

[394]As far as Wayne Fermor was concerned, we find that he had worked as an acting Inspector on an ad hoc basis on a few occasions during 2022. This was not for a continuous period and so he was not an acting Inspector at the time he started work on the Gold pilot project in January 2023. He had been involved with the team since 2019 and was identified as a ‘subject matter expert’ by Chief Inspector Tom Smith. Over the years he had performed all the roles within that team and developed some expertise in it. During 2023 he worked as a Sergeant for periods and then as an acting Inspector and back again. The senior officer with whom he had been working wanted him to start acting up as that would assist the work he was doing. Mr Fermor had already passed the Part 1 Inspector exam in November 2023. MiST only had budget for one Inspector. That had been Nikki Hardy in early 2022 and then Jack Lewis towards the end of the year. After doing the work for a while, in December 2023, it was agreed that Mr Fermor would act up formally, on the basis that he required the authority of the acting rank to more effectively push ahead with the project. His CARMs was not changed until 20 December. At the time of the Tribunal hearing, Mr Fermor was still acting up. It was confirmed on a month-by-month basis as it depended on the needs of the business. This was not a substantive role and would likely cease once the project comes to an end.

[395]Mr Fermor confirmed in the hearing that he had not applied for the acting Inspector select list in 2023 and had not been aware of the earlier recruitment process in 2022. He did not apply for the corporate process in 2023. He decided that if he applied in one of the acting Inspector select list processes he could be placed elsewhere, and he did not want to be moved out of MiST as he is invested in the work. He confirmed that he used two different electronic signatures – one as a Sergeant and the other as Inspector, depending on the role he was carrying out at the time. Mr Fermor confirmed that he had only recently completed 80 hours for this term in the role and so would only in April 2025, be able to claim additional pay as an acting

[396]As already explained above at paragraph 138, Jas Randhawa was acting up in a role, that of acting Inspector in the VSU, which required the postholder to work late shifts. The role started out as an ad hoc appointment to cover Jules Bertie’s post while he acted up as Chief Inspector elsewhere. It was to either be confirmed or he would be replaced by someone from the select list at the next LRPM. It was then decided that Mr Bertie would be moving to another post, which meant that Mr Randhawa would have to continue to act up for a longer period than initially expected. It was not however, appropriate to move him as it was not known, at the time of the email, whether the acting role would continue to exist past January 2024. We were not told what the position was at the time of the hearing. It is likely that Mr Randhawa is not white.

[397]Ms Jenkins wrote to Ms Robson on 28 December to explain that all three officers were acting up in line with local policy and set out the rationale behind each one. Ms Robson arranged for this information to be sent to the Claimant. The Claimant was told that these were all ad hoc, short-term acting up roles. The email stated that in the absence of any evidence supporting the claim that the local acting-up policy was incorrectly applied, leading to any subsequent detriment to him, the grievance team was unable to further pursue his grievance, which meant that the grievance remained closed. Ad hoc short-term roles were described, following information provided by Mr Rolston, as appointments that lasted: ‘up to 55 days, where there is an urgent operational need due to sickness/leave/training etc’.

[398]Ms Robson considered that the recommendations from the first grievance had not yet been implemented as there had not been sufficient time for that to happen. As the second grievance linked into the first grievance, she felt that any learning that could possibly come about from the first grievance would only materialise once the EA BCU had a bit more time to follow through on those recommendations.

[399]On 3 January 2024, the Claimant provided further evidence about the three comparators. He contested the Respondent’s position that these were short term, ad hoc appointments. He purported to show by copies of CARMs entries, sign off on emails and intranet cards that all three officers had been acting up for long periods, and had not applied to be on any select lists. Ms Robson took a second look at the grievance and at the additional evidence. She felt that there was still insufficient evidence to contradict Ms Jenkins’ explanation. She considered that Ms Jenkins had given detailed explanations for each of the officers that the Claimant named in his grievance. Ms Robson concluded that Ms Jenkins’ rank and position in the Respondent meant that she was likely to have more detailed knowledge of the circumstances than the Claimant. She did not re-open the Claimant’s grievance. She wrote to him to explain all of this and to provide him with the exact wording on Ms Jenkins’ email as he had asked for it.

[400]Ms Robson asked the Claimant to refrain from accessing his colleagues CARMs on the system as there could be confidential information on them. She advised that it was his responsibility to provide evidence to support his complaints and refuted his allegation of bias. She wrote to the Claimant from her corporate email address. This meant that when she was absent from work due to the serious ill-health of a relative at the start of the new year and then compassionate leave from 5 – 22 March 2024 followed by some annual leave; she missed the Claimant’s second email, also sent on 3 January.

[401]She initially responded to the Claimant’s first email on 3 January as she thought it would be easier for her to do so rather than handover that piece of work to a colleague. On 3 January, she was not actively working on any grievance cases but was only working to handover work to her line manager. She was working to complete reports but was not actively at work because of her personal circumstances. Unfortunately, due to the team being stretched and her work having to be divided up between other assessors who were already busy, it is likely that the Claimant was not the only person to email Ms Robson during this period and not get a response.

[402]Ms Robson’s decision was that there was nothing to progress as the Claimant had not provided her with evidence from which she could conclude that the individuals the Claimant named had been put in those roles because they were white. She considered that the first grievance addressed the question of whether they had been put in those roles outside of the procedure. That had already been investigated, and the recommendations had yet to be implemented. As a result, she decided not to reopen the grievance.

[403]While Ms Robson was off, her line manager, Duane reviewed the correspondence and drafted the following response to the Claimant: “Following a thorough review of the below correspondence 20th December to 4th April. I have determined that no further action from the grievance team is necessary at this time. The matter has been duly considered, rationale for the current series of acting positions has been provided. Additionally a prior grievance has led to recommendations being made to address. I will ask that your ongoing concern is shared with your BCU grievance SPOC for awareness”

[404]The Claimant, Mr Asghar and other officers asked the BCU Commander, Mr Bell to hold a listening circle with officers from a black and ethnic minority background to listen to their concerns about the Respondent. Mr Bell agreed, and a meeting was held on 6 June 2023, at Ilford Town Hall. Ms Jenkins attended, as did several other members of the senior leadership team. The Claimant raised allegations of discrimination at that meeting.

[405]The Claimant raised an additional grievance on 29 February 2024. This was later raised as a misconduct complaint concerning Ms Jenkins in a form 5020A and sent to the DPS on 20 March 2024.

[406]The misconduct allegation was in relation to the conversations he had with Ms Jenkins on 6 and 7 May 2023 and Ms Jenkins’ subsequent conversation with Ms Butterfield on 9 May in which she informed her that the Claimant had made complaints of discrimination against her. The Claimant complained that Ms Jenkins’ action breached his confidentiality and that, as the Professional Standards lead for the BCU, she had a duty to keep this matter confidential because he told her in confidence and because when she spoke to Ms Butterfield there was a possibility of a misconduct investigation, which her action could have jeopardised.

[407]He complained that Ms Jenkins disclosure caused hostility and victimisation in the workplace and quoted from Ms Butterfield’s interview with Ms Cormack in the grievance investigation, in which she stated that she did not see why she should want someone working for her who makes vexatious claims and calls her a racist. She also referred to her relationship with the Claimant as broken and that trust and professionalism was not there between them. He referred to an MG11 (signed statement), which Ms Butterfield had completed for an investigation into Mr Asghar’s conduct in which she stated that the Claimant had made groundless allegations against her at Mr Asghar’s behest. We find that he was complaining that Ms Butterfield had victimised him in the workplace.

[408]The Respondent was concerned with how the Claimant had got hold of the MG11 as it had been produced in response to a separate investigation and should therefore have been kept confidential to that investigation and not disclosed to him. The Claimant was not part of that investigation. The Claimant disclosed it to the Respondent in support of this complaint. As the subject of the complaint, Ms Jenkins was a Chief Inspector, it had to be considered by someone of equivalent or higher rank. That was why it was passed to Mr O’Donnell to consider as he was also a Chief

[409]Mr O’Donnell was not part of the Respondent’s grievance management team. He was in a totally separate department and acted as the Appropriate Authority making decisions on conduct matters or police complaints from the public. He agreed in the hearing the Claimant was complaining about both Ms Butterfield and Ms Jenkins and that his complaint included a complaint of victimisation.

[410]He had no previous dealings with the Claimant and at the time that he considered this grievance, was not aware of the Claimant’s previous grievances. He also did not know of the Claimant’s meetings with Mr Bell on 6 June. He might have been aware of the Tribunal claim but at the time it was not well known that there was a discrimination element to it, although given his other complaints, it was likely to. He was a Chief Inspector on the Complaints Resolution Unit, which was also a part of DPS.

[411]As an Appropriate Authority (AA) Mr O’Donnell’s task was to assess whether the indication test had been met, i.e. that there was an indication that Ms Jenkins had breached the standards of professional behaviour (SOPB) or committed a criminal offence by telling Ms Butterfield about the Claimant’s grievance. If there was a breach, he also had to determine at what level the breach had occurred – whether it was misconduct or gross misconduct – as that would determine who could investigate it.

[412]In the chain of emails to Mr O’Donnell was an initial assessment of the Claimant’s complaint by James Whitfield who worked in the Gateway Team. His job was to assess the information and decide whether there was enough information for the matter to be considered by an Appropriate Authority of if a further fact find was needed. He summarised the Claimant’s complaint and passed it to Inspector Bott who delegated it to Mr O’Donnell as he could not make a decision on a complaint about a Chief Inspector, as Ms Jenkins was at the time. In his summary, Mr Whitfield stated that as far as he could tell from reading the papers, Ms Butterfield likely came to know about the Claimant’s complaint about her by legitimate means, through the employment tribunal claim and therefore there was no basis for the Claimant’s complaint of a breach in confidentiality. This was incorrect as it was agreed between the parties that Ms Butterfield initially found out about the Claimant’s grievance on 9 May when Ms Jenkins spoke to her, but it does not appear that Mr Whitfield knew this at the time of his assessment.

[413]When Mr O’Donnell considered the Claimant’s complaint, he was of the belief that the victimisation aspect against Ms Butterfield was being addressed by the grievance team, the assessment of which was ongoing, and therefore not within his remit. He did not want to duplicate what they were doing. He confirmed in his live evidence that if at the end of their investigation the grievance assessor came to the conclusion that there had been a potential breach of the SOPB, then the DPS could look at the issues again. This meant that it was still possible for the victimisation aspect to be addressed by the DPS.

[414]The email chain, which was attached to the documents forwarded to Mr O’Donnell, included two emails from Abla Bekkaye, Grievance Administrator, who was part of the grievance management team. The first email dated 1 March confirmed that the grievance had been accepted and recorded and would now be assessed and the second, dated 20 March, informed him that the complaint about Ms Jenkins was not within the SOP for the grievance management team and would need to be referred to the DPS. Mr O’Donnell’s evidence was that despite what was stated at paragraph 7 of his witness statement, he had not read through the whole email chain and had not realised that these emails were there, so he believed that the victimisation aspect of the Claimant’s grievance was still being addressed by the grievance management team. Although this was sloppy on his part, we found it likely that he was telling the truth about this.

[415]Mr O’Donnell was clear in his evidence that in looking at the rest of the grievance, he relied on the contents of the form 5020A, which we had in the document bundle. The Claimant alleged that Ms Jenkins’ action in telling Ms Butterfield of his grievance led to “victimization in the workplace, making a hostile working environment. It also raises concerns regarding making reports of wrongdoing in the workplace and affects the trust/confidence in the system which is supposed to protect officers reporting wrongdoing.” He did not set out details of the acts of victimisation he relied on in the form, or what he was referring to as a hostile work environment. He simply referred to the allocation of posts two days later and Ms Butterfield’s statement about him to the grievance investigator that she did not want someone working for her who makes vexatious claims and calls her racist. The Claimant did not state that there was a post that he would have got if he had not brought his grievance. In his email to Ms Jenkins dated 6 May, which Mr O’Donnell also had, he claimed that he might have got an acting Inspector post if he had not sent the email to Mr Byrne dated 13 March 2023, but that was not something that was put to the Respondent’s witnesses in the hearing or something that Mr O’Donnell considered.

[416]The Respondent’s grievance policy and procedure stated at page 1532 that ‘Subjecting someone to less favourable treatment because they have raised an issue or grievance, or engaged with this procedure, may lead to disciplinary action’.

[417]Mr O’Donnell did not speak to Ms Jenkins or Ms Butterfield as his interpretation of the regulations required him to only examine evidence readily available and not ask questions. The Respondent’s procedure did not require him to ask questions or interview anyone. Once he considered the Claimant’s complaint, he decided that there was no case to answer in relation to the complaint of a breach of confidentiality for two reasons. Firstly, he concluded that there was no facility for the DPS to investigate a complaint without the officer subject to the complaint being informed, unless it might prejudice the investigation. This means that Ms Butterfield would have had to have been informed of the complaint.

[418]Secondly, he decided that what Ms Jenkins had done was not in breach of the SOPB (standards of professional behaviour) because part of recording a conduct complaint was the completion of the MM1 form. There is a section of that form which states as follows: - “You may speak with the officer/member of staff about the issue insofar as it is necessary to understand the matter and to ensure that the correct process is followed. If this relates to a potential conduct matter, this discussion should not cross the line into investigation.” The form also asks the person completing it to record what the officer/member of staff said in response to being told of the complaint. We were not told that Ms Jenkins completed this form after she spoke to Ms Butterfield about the Claimant’s complaint. However, Mr O’Donnell’s conclusion was that because this would have had to be done, there was no indication of misconduct here.

[419]He did not address the victimisation complaint. He did not appreciate that as the Claimant was quoting from statements made by Ms Butterfield to the grievance investigator, it was likely that by the time he was considering this, the grievance investigation had concluded.

[420]Mr O’Donnell was also concerned that the Claimant was in possession of an MG11 statement that Ms Butterfield made against Mr Asghar, which the Claimant attached to his complaint and quoted. The Respondent conducted a separate investigation into how this happened.

[421]The Claimant conducted some correspondence with Mr O’Donnell in January 2025 to try to get him to re-open the victimisation complaint, but Mr O’Donnell refused.

Law

[422]The Claimant brought complaints of direct race discrimination, victimisation and harassment. At the end of his evidence in the hearing, he told the Tribunal that he was withdrawing his harassment complaints. Direct discrimination

[423]The Claimant complained of direct discrimination which is prohibited by section 13 of the Equality Act (EA). If, because of a protected characteristic (in this case race), A treats B less favourably than it treats or would treat others, then that is direct discrimination.

[424]In this case, the Claimant relied on actual comparators as he compared his treatment to the numerous comparators who we will refer to as we go through the individual allegations. His case is that all his comparators were white British and/or Caucasian.

[425]The Claimant identifies as Asian – Pakistani.

[426]Section 23 of the EA states that: “on a comparison of cases for the purposes of section 13, there must be no material difference between the circumstances relating to each case.”

[427]The requirement necessary to establish less favourable treatment is not one of less favourable treatment than that which would have been accorded by a reasonable employer in the same circumstances, but of less favourable treatment than that which had or would have been accorded by the same employer in the same circumstances towards another employee, actual or hypothetical, whose relevant circumstances are not materially different. Law Society v Bahl

[2003] IRLR 640

. Victimisation

[428]A person(a) (A) victimises another person

(b) (B) if A subjects B to a detriment because – (a) B does a protected act, or (b) A believes that B has done, or may do, a protected act. Each of the following is a protected act – (a) bringing proceedings under this Act; (b) giving evidence or information in connection with proceedings under this Act;

(d) making an allegation (whether or not express) that A or another person has contravened this Act. (2) The first question for the Tribunal was whether the Claimant did protected acts. The Respondent conceded that the Claimant had done protected acts by making complaints of discrimination and grievance on 6 and 7 May and raising a grievance on 11 May 2023, and on 10 December 2023 and by issuing this claim in the employment tribunal on 14 March 2023. (3) He submitted that he had made complaints of discrimination at the meetings held by Mr Clayman on 6 October 2020 and 19 February 2021. He also relies on an email sent to Mr Byrne on 13 March 2023. The allegations in that email were of unfair treatment and race was not mentioned in it. It is unlikely that this email was a protected act. (4) The Claimant relies on his meeting with Mr Bell on 6 June 2003, and a grievance submitted on 10 December 2023, both of which have been accepted by the Respondent as protected acts. (5) The Claimant also relies on his grievance submitted on 29 February 2024 and the misconduct matter submitted to the DPS on 20 March 2024. (6) The Tribunal has to decide whether the Claimant was subjected to any detriment because he did protected acts. Burden of proof in relation to all the discrimination complaints

[429]The burden of proving discrimination complaint rests on the employee bringing the complaint. The concept of the shifting burden of proof is discussed in a number of cases and is set out in section 136 of the Equality Act which states that if there are facts from which the court could decide, in the absence of any other explanation, that a person (A) contravened the provision concerned, the court must hold that the contravention occurred. If A is able to show that it did not contravene the provision, then this would not apply. (See Igen v Wong [2005] IRLR and subsequent cases including Madarassay v Nomura International Plc

[2007] IRLR 246

[430]There is a two-stage process to the drawing of inferences of direct discrimination. In the first place, the claimant must prove facts from which the tribunal could conclude, in the absence of any other explanation, that the respondent had committed an unlawful act of discrimination against the claimant. If this has been established, then the tribunal must move to the second stage, which is to consider whether the respondent has proved that it did not commit discrimination. Whilst Igen was considering the legislative provisions before the Equality Act, the Supreme Court has confirmed, in Efobi v Royal Mail Group Ltd

[2021] IRLR 811

, that the slight change in wording in EA 2010 s 136 does not alter the law. Accordingly, the Igen principles remain good law, with the Supreme Court in Efobi confirming that certain clarifications and elaborations of the Igen approach set out in subsequent case law authorities are also correct: such as: - The fairly obvious point that a tribunal cannot conclude that, in the words of s 136(2), 'there are facts from which the court could decide…' unless on the balance of probability from the evidence it is more likely than not that those facts are true. - All the evidence as to the facts before the tribunal must be considered, not just evidence adduced by the claimant. - However, facts and explanations should be carefully distinguished from each other since s 136(2) requires that any explanation provided by the employer should not be taken into account at this first burden-shifting stage.

[431]In every case the tribunal has to determine the reason why the claimant was treated as he was. As Lord Nicholls put it in Nagarajan v London Regional Transport

[1999] IRLR 572

“this is the crucial question”. It was also his observation that in most cases this will call for some consideration of the mental processes (conscious or subconscious) of the alleged discriminator. If the tribunal is satisfied that the prohibited ground is one of the reasons for the treatment, that is sufficient to establish discrimination. It need not be the only or even the main reason. It is sufficient that it is significant in the sense of being more than trivial.

[432]In assessing the facts in this case, the tribunal is aware (Bahl v The Law Society

[2003] IRLR 640

) that simply showing that conduct is unreasonable and unfair would not, by itself, be enough to trigger the reversal of the burden of proof. Unreasonable conduct is not always discriminatory whereas discriminatory conduct is always unreasonable. It was also stated in the case of Griffiths-Henry v Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd

[2006] IRLR 865

that an employer does not have to establish that he acted reasonably or fairly in order to avoid a finding of discrimination. He only has to establish that the true reason was in no sense whatsoever on proscribed grounds. Obviously, if unreasonable conduct occurs alongside other factors which suggest that there is or might be discrimination, then the tribunal should find that the claimant had made a prima facie case and shift the burden on to the respondent to show that its treatment of the claimant had nothing to do with the claimant’s race or the fact that he did protected acts and in so doing apply the burden of proof principle as set out above.

[433]The tribunal has to assess not merely whether the respondent has proved an explanation for the facts from which such inferences can be drawn, but further that it is adequate to discharge the burden of proof on the balance of probabilities that the relevant protected characteristic was not any part of the reason for the treatment in question. If the respondent can do this, the claim fails. “If …. the tribunal accepts that the reason given for the treatment is genuine, then unless there is evidence to warrant a finding of unconscious discrimination, such that the tribunal is really finding that the alleged discriminator has concealed the true reason even from himself, there will be no basis to infer unlawful discrimination at all” (see Bahl). Time

[434]The primary time limit is set out in section 123 of the Equality Act 2010, which states that proceedings may not be brought after the end of the period of three months starting with the date of the act on which the complaint relates. In determining the date that the act occurred, the tribunal has to decide whether the complaints are part of a continuing act or conduct extending over a period (subsection (3)(a)). If the claim has been brought outside of the 3-month period, taking the last act as the starting point where there is a continuing act; the tribunal has a discretion as to whether to extend time as it thinks is just and equitable, to allow the complaints to be considered.

[435]It was the Respondent’s submission that the allegations of direct race discrimination in the first claim that relate to the 2021 acting Inspector process was out of time. Also, that any event prior to 15 November 2022 were brought out of time.

[436]It was submitted that there was no complaint which linked the next ‘in time’ allegation namely, Mr Nixon sending out the advertisement in December 2022, with the previous allegation, which occurred in December 2021, so the Claimant would not be able to demonstrate a continuing act.

[437]In relation to the third claim, the Respondent submitted that the Claimant entered into Early Conciliation on 6 April 2024 and the certificate had been issued on 25 April 2024, which meant that as the ET1 was not issued until 14 May 2024, any act or omission prior to 7 January 2024 is prima facie out of time.

[438]The Respondent reminded the Tribunal that the burden was on the Claimant to show why there should be an extension of time for presentation of his claims on a just and equitable basis.

[439]In relation to the first claim, as far as the complaints that are dated in 2021 are concerned - and in relation to the third claim – as far as the complaints in May and December 2023 and January 2024 are concerned, the Tribunal does have to first consider whether they are part of any continuing act. Conduct ‘extending over a period’ is to be treated as done at the end of the period (section 123 EA). That applies to a continuing course of discriminatory conduct/maintenance of a continuing policy/state of affairs. See Hendricks v MPC

[2002] EWCA Civ 1686

. The correct test, as submitted by the Claimant, is whether the acts complained of are sufficiently linked, as opposed to ‘a succession of unconnected or isolated specific acts.’ A relevant factor is whether the same individuals were involved.

[440]If they are not part of a continuing act, the Tribunal has to consider whether or not it is just and equitable to extend the time limits for presentation of the complaint. where it determines that the complaint has been submitted outside the statutory time limit.

[441]The Tribunal is mindful that time limits are to be exercised strictly in employment cases and there is no presumption that a tribunal should exercise its discretion to extend time on the just and equitable ground unless it can justify failure to exercise a discretion. The onus is always on the claimant to convince the tribunal that it is just and equitable to extend time. It has been held that whether a claimant succeeds in persuading a Tribunal to grant an extension in any particular case is not a question of either policy or law; it is a question of fact and judgment, to be answered in each individual case, by the Tribunal at first instance which is empowered to answer it.

[442]In considering whether to apply this discretion, a Tribunal can take into account and can apply similar formula to that given to the Civil Courts by section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980 and referred to in the case of British Coal Corporation v Keeble

[1997] IRLR 336

. The Tribunal is required to consider the prejudice which each party would suffer as a result of granting or refusing an extension, and to have regard to all the other circumstances, in particular:-(a) the length of reasons for the delay;

(b) the extent to which the cogency of the evidence is likely to be affected by the delay;

(d) the promptness with which the Claimant acted once she knew the facts giving rise to the cause of action; and

(e) the steps taken by the Claimant to obtain appropriate professional advice once he or she knew of the possibility of taking action.

[443]Although, these factors will frequently serve as a useful checklist, there is no legal requirement on the Tribunal to go through such a list in every case, provided that no significant factor has been left out of account by the tribunal in exercising its discretion (London Borough of Southwark v Afolabi

[2003] IRLR 220

). Applying Law to facts

[444]The Tribunal will go through each of the issues in the list of issues set out at pages 113 – 118 and 1715 – 1718 of the hearing bundle and give our judgment on each of those issues.

[445]There are many comparators referred to in each allegation and we will do our best to avoid duplication here.

[446]Before giving our judgment on the specific allegations, the Tribunal will also make the following points: -

[447]As a panel we found the number of errors made by Respondent’s admin in this area of business to be of concern. It is our judgment that the reference to the Claimant as applicant 3 in two places in the minutes of the moderation panel from the November 2021 process, was incorrect but was as a result of admin errors. It is important that these types of minutes are recorded correctly as there are serious consequences for getting them wrong. This is especially so when there is heightened scrutiny on these documents.

[448]Another unfortunate admin error was made when Shane Donnelly was recorded as having passed the same process. The LRPM spreadsheet was prepared some two months later, which may explain how the error crept in. The Respondent does need to guard against this happening again. Another error, which was partly admin and partly a lack of clarity in the thinking behind it, was the wording of the advert in March 2023, which left potential applicants confused about their position.

[449]The Respondent has been described as institutionally racist in more than one report over many years. The most recent of these being the Casey report. The Respondent has made clear in this hearing its desire to reflect the population of London in terms of ethnic and gender diversity, across the ranks. We were not told that the Respondent has yet succeeded in doing so. In its efforts to do so, the Respondent must ensure, among other things, that its administration is accurate in terms of recording scoring in recruitment exercises, in minutes of meetings, and in wording of adverts; in addition to following guidelines in running the processes themselves.

[450]It is our judgment that the LRPM is an important tool in the Respondent’s efforts to bring about more/increased diversity in its ranks. The chair of the LRPM, who in these times was Mr Rolston, holds a very important role as it is up to that person to question department leads when they attend the meeting and bid for particular officers or to fill certain posts. If the Chair is simply a rubber-stamping role, as Mr Rolston seemed to believe it to be, that would be a missed opportunity to have a senior officer take a bird’s eye view of the makeup of the BCU, the movements of personnel, to balance everyone’s requests and to ensure that every officer is considered – whether they are in post, acting up or moving on. Ms Butterfield’s request for Ms Laslett should not have been approved as there was no vacancy there. We will consider separately below whether this was also an act of less favourable treatment or victimisation, but it occurs to us that if Mr Rolston had asked the right questions at the LRPM, the appointment would not have happened at all, or Ms Laslett would have been assigned to a different role. As it was, her appointment to the Claimant’s substantive Sergeant role affected not only the Claimant as he was unable to go back to it, but also the officer who had been acting up in it, as it was not vacant.

[451]In respect of the Respondent’s stated aim to have a police service that reflects the ethnic and gender makeup of London, the Respondent may want to think about building on the recommendations made by Mr Watson, particularly of putting in place equality impact assessments which are actively reported on and possibly incorporated into the LRPM so that anyone who reads the minutes of those meetings can see for instance, how many women and ethnic minority officers applied during this round of acting Sgt roles or acting Inspector roles and how many were successful and what support would be provided for those who were not successful. That sort of monitoring could assist the Respondent with its stated goals. The list of issues Time point

The list of issues

[452]The Claimant’s first claim was issued on 14 March 2023. The ACAS conciliation certificate for that claim was issued on 16 February 2023. The Tribunal agrees with the Respondent’s submission that any complaint about an event that occurred before 15 November 2022 is out of time.

[453]The Claimant’s second claim was issued on 8 July 2023, after the Claimant was given an ACAS conciliation certificate dated 8 June 2023. The third claim was submitted on 14 May 2024. Issue1.1.1 - The Claimant’s complaints at paragraphs 1.1 – 1.5 all occurred before 15 November 2022. They were therefore issued outside of the three months statutory time limit. Issue

1.1.2 - Were these complaints all part of a continuing act with the allegations that are in time? Was there conduct extending over a period?

[454]The next act complained about in allegation 1.6(1) is Mr Nixon sending out the advert for the post in December 2022. We found it unlikely that Mr Nixon was part of the moderation panel even though his name was on the minutes. Also, there was over a year between allegation 1.5 (November 2021) and allegation 1.6(1) (December 2022). The complaint in November 2021 at allegation 1.5 was for a different role from that complained about in allegation 1.6(1).

[455]Taking into account all the relevant circumstances, it is this Tribunal’s judgment that there was no connection between allegations 1.5 and allegation 1.6(1).

[456]The allegations at 1.6 arise from different processes from those referred to at allegations 1.1 – 1.5 above.

[457]It is therefore our judgment that they are not part of a continuing act. The next question for the Tribunal at 1.1.4 - Is it just and equitable to extend time to enable these allegations to be considered by the Tribunal? Why were the complainants not made to the Tribunal in time? Has the Claimant persuaded us to use our discretion to extend time in relation to these allegations?

[458]The Claimant did not give any evidence as to why his claim was not issued until 2023, when he was clearly unhappy about the results of his applications to be placed on select lists from at least 2021.

[459]The Tribunal is conscious of the need to apply time limits strictly in the employment tribunal. There is a discretion to extend time but that can only be applied if the Claimant persuades the Tribunal that it should do so, because of particular circumstances. The Claimant did not do so.

[460]In the circumstances, we do not extend time.

[461]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that it does not have jurisdiction to consider the complaints at allegations 1.1 – 1.5 in Appendix 1 as allegations of direct discrimination or as allegations of victimisation. Allegations of Direct Discrimination and Victimisation

[462]The facts found which relate to all the allegations, that could lead the Tribunal to infer race discrimination are that in Baroness Casey’s report, which was published in March 2023, following her investigation, the Respondent as a whole, was described as institutionally racist as well as sexist and homophobic. She referred in particular to the need for the Respondent to take rapid steps to end discrimination internally in its recruitment, development and promotion processes and in its internal misconduct system. Operation Hotton also referred, in its report to the need to review current guidance and policy in relation to acting up to ensure that there is transparency and clarity on how acting up positions are decided and recorded.

[463]Also, in this BCU, the Claimant along with other ethnic minority officers had complained to Mr Clayman and later Mr Bell that they were not being given equal opportunity to train as drivers of police vehicles or to act up in senior roles. They also complained that they were overrepresented in internal disciplinary proceedings.

[464]There was therefore the perception among the Claimant and his black and other ethnic minority colleagues of less favourable treatment in terms of promotion and other opportunities within the Respondent. We then have to analyse the Claimant’s case.

[465]The Tribunal’s task is to examine the evidence against the law and determine whether in the instances referred to us by the Claimant, he has proved that he personally suffered direct race discrimination and victimisation. We will go through each allegation in Appendices 1, 2 and 3, starting with Appendix 1. Allegation 1.6(1) and (3)

[466]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that Mr Nixon posted an advert for a substantive Inspector post in December 2022, not because he was instructed to do so but because he needed to. Up until that time the Claimant had been covering the role as an acting Inspector for Ms Jenkins, who was on maternity leave. Once she was promoted, it became a vacant post for a substantive Inspector. This was the post he had been occupying since June 2022 as an acting Inspector. At the time, the Claimant was not eligible to apply for a substantive Inspector post, which is why he did not apply for it.

[467]It is our judgment that following his appointment to the role, Mr Handley emailed Mr Nixon in January 2023 to confirm that he would now liaise with the Claimant for handover purposes because it was expected that the Claimant as the incumbent would need to handover to him, to ensure a smooth transition. The Claimant was told about Mr Handley’s appointment as soon as it happened. His appointment was not confirmed until the LRPM in March, but Mr Nixon called the Claimant and informed him about it in as soon as it had been announced in January, so that he had time to absorb the news.

[468]It is our judgment that the role at Barking & Dagenham became a substantive role once Ms Jenkins was promoted. It was no longer suitable to be held as an acting role. Although both the Claimant and Mr Nixon hoped the role would last a long time, it is also our judgment that there had been no assurances given to the Claimant that he would be in the role until September 2023. Although Ms Jenkins was not due back until January, the Respondent knew that the recruitment process could take some time, which meant that it was appropriate and practical for that process to begin as soon as possible. Mr Nixon delayed placing the advert until December, to assist the Claimant as this meant that he had time to complete projects and gather evidence that he could use to support his future applications for promotion. As it was, Mr Handley’s confirmation in post did not happen until the LRPM in March and he did not start until 1 May, which demonstrates how long the process could take. It is our judgment that this would also have happened in a hypothetical situation.

[469]It is our judgment that it was appropriate for the Respondent to recruit a substantive Inspector to the role, and for that person to get in touch with the Claimant to arrange a handover. It was also appropriate for the Respondent to announce changes in staffing arrangements to the other Inspectors within the SNT. These were not instances of less favourable treatment to the Claimant. It is our judgment that the same announcement would have been made about a hypothetical comparator.

[470]In terms of real comparators, we found above many instances of acting officers who were white, who had to vacate a role once it became substantive. We found that Mr Chatters stepped back to being a Sgt when Mr Noori was appointed to a substantive role in November 2022. Also, Mr Oldfield occupied Mr Canter’s role as an acting after Ms Hollenberg went on maternity leave. Once Mr Canter’s retirement was announced, the role became substantive, and Mr Oldfield could not continue to occupy it. Mr Noori was appointed to the substantive Inspector role.

[471]There was no less favourable treatment in relation to allegations 1.6(1) or (3).

[472]It is our judgment that by the end of January 2023, the Claimant had done the two protected acts outlined at2.1.1 and

2.1.2 on page 114. Mr Nixon had not been aware that the Claimant had done so as he was not in the BCU at the time of those meetings. He had heard about the meetings since then but had not been aware that the Claimant had been part of them.

[473]We did not have evidence that could lead us to infer that Mr Nixon placed the advert or instructed Mr Handley to contact the Claimant, because of the Claimant’s

[474]It is our judgment that the advert was placed because there was a vacancy, and Mr Handley was told to write to the Claimant because it was appropriate and common for there to be a handover when a new postholder was appointed.

[475]These acts did not occur because the Claimant did any protected acts.

[476]The complaint of victimisation in relation to allegations 1.6(1) and 1.6(3) fails and is dismissed. Allegation 1.6(2)

[477]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that in December 2022, PS Laslett was posted to the Claimant’s substantive role of Sergeant following the decision by the LRPM in October 2022.

[478]It is also our judgment that Ms Butterfield bid for Ms Laslett because she saw her name on the spreadsheet and decided that as she was a substantive Sgt, it would be good to have her in her team. This technically displaced the Claimant although at the time, he was not yet ready to revert to his substantive role as Mr Handley was not due to take up the position until 1 May 2023. It also displaced the acting Sgt who was in the role at the time, and it is likely that that person had to go back his PC role. We were not told what happened to him.

[479]It is our judgment that at the time she made the bid for Ms Laslett, Ms Butterfield knew of the meetings that the Claimant and others had with Mr Clayman.

[480]As the Claimant expressed indifference at the time he was told about this, it is our judgment that there was likely no less favourable treatment to him by Ms Butterfield bidding for Ms Laslett. He was not guaranteed the role, should he need to revert back to it, and as he had ambitions to progress to an acting Inspector role, he was not expecting to have to revert back.

[481]However, it could also be perceived as less favourable treatment to the Claimant. There was no discussion in the LRPM as to how this would affect the

[482]If it is perceived as less favourable treatment, the burden of proof shifts to the Respondent in relation to 1.6(2) only.

[483]In that case, the Tribunal considered whether the Respondent provided a cogent, non-discriminatory reason for Ms Butterfield bidding for Ms Laslett at the LRPM.

[484]It is our judgment that the Respondent has proved that Ms Laslett was a substantive Sergeant, and that Ms Butterfield was keen to have a substantive Sgt in her team, given the number of acting Sergeants in the Neighbourhood. Mr Rolston failed to ensure that the post was vacant and assumed that because Ms Butterfield asked for Ms Laslett, that meant that she had made the necessary checks and the post was vacant, which was incorrect. It was also a fact that one was not guaranteed that they would be able to go back to their substantive post. The BCU was re-organised at least once in the period covered by this case and some posts disappeared and others were reconfigured. It was always possible that this would occur. Also, that the postholder would be promoted, as happened to Ms Jenkins. This would give the Respondent the opportunity to consider whether that neighbourhood still required the same number of Sgts or whether it needed more Inspectors, for example. The Claimant was not guaranteed to return to that role.

[485]We were not told of any other time when this had happened to anyone else. There was no actual comparator to this situation. In terms of a hypothetical comparator, it is likely that given the high number of acting Sergeants in the Neighbourhood, if the Claimant had been a white acting Inspector, it is in our judgment likely that Ms Butterfield would still have bid for Ms Laslett at the LRPM, to fill his substantive Sergeant role. It is also our judgment that when he needed a Sgt role, after Mr Handley’s appointment was confirmed, he had a choice of two Sgt roles – Redbridge and Havering – and he was appointed to the Redbridge which was his choice.

[486]It is our judgment that this was not less favourable treatment as the Respondent would have treated a hypothetical comparator in the same way. The Claimant has failed to prove facts from which we could infer that Ms Butterfield bid for Ms Laslett because of his race, whether consciously or sub-consciously.

[487]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that there was no less favourable treatment in allegation 1.6(2).

[488]It is also our judgment that although Ms Butterfield was aware of the meetings the Claimant and others had with Mr Clayman, we did not have evidence that this was part of her motivation or featured – consciously or sub-consciously – in her mind when she bid for Ms Laslett. She also did not know at the time that the Claimant was one of those who attended and raised concerns about race discrimination in the BCU. The evidence was that Mr Butterfield was keen to have the best and most qualified staff in her neighbourhood and when she noticed on the spreadsheet that there was a newly qualified Sergeant available, she quickly put in her bid.

[489]It is our judgment that the complaint of victimisation in allegation 1.6(2) fails and is dismissed. Allegation 1.6(4)

[490]In the Claimant’s submissions, he stated that issue 1.6(4) was about the decision rather than about the announcement. It is likely that the decision referred to is the decision that the Claimant would be returning to his Sergeant role rather than being given an acting Inspector role.

[491]It is our judgment that Mr Nixon’s announcement to the SNT Inspectors on 23 February 2023 was not less favourable treatment to the Claimant. The Claimant was disappointed to be reverting back to being a Sgt but the decision that he should revert was made because of the circumstances that arose from Ms Jenkins’ promotion and the Claimant not yet having secured an acting Inspector role to move on to. This was not a less favourable treatment to the Claimant.

[492]The decision was made at the LRPM in March. It was not Mr Nixon’s decision but a decision that arose out of the circumstances at the time. Ms Jenkins’ post was now a substantive one, Mr Handley had successfully applied for it, the Claimant had not secured an acting role and therefore had to revert to his original Sgt role.

[493]The announcement referred to at allegation 1.6(4), was Mr Nixon simply announcing staffing changes to his local Inspector’s meeting. It was appropriate to keep them appraised of developments and staff changes.

[494]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that neither the LRPM’s decision in March 2022 nor Mr Nixon’s announcement in February 2023 were less favourable treatment to the

[495]The Claimant compares himself with Richard Pollock in respect of allegation 1.6(4). It is our judgment that Mr Pollock was not a proper comparator for this allegation. Mr Pollock was asked to cover Mr Chatters’ role when he unexpectedly became unwell. Mr Pollock was not covering a role as an acting Inspector, when the postholder was then promoted - which is what happened to the Claimant. If he had, and the role had become substantive upon the postholder’s promotion, he would not have been able to apply for or be appointed to it, in the same way that the Claimant could not apply for the substantive role at Barking & Dagenham. Mr Pollock had applied in the corporate Sergeant to Inspector process in March 2023. His ad hoc appointment to cover the acting Inspector role in Redbridge came to an end when he resigned.

[496]It is our judgment that white acting Inspectors reverted to the role of Sgt when circumstances changed. We had evidence that Richard Oldfield reverted to being a Sergeant in November 2021, Matt Chatters reverted to being a Sergeant in 2022 and Matt Feather reverted to being a Sergeant in September 2023.

[497]It is our judgment that there was no less favourable treatment in the decision that the Claimant should revert to being a Sgt once Mr Handley was appointed to the substantive role and until the Respondent found him another acting Inspector role.

[498]The allegation of less favourable treatment in 1.6(4) fails.

[499]It is also our judgment that the decision made at the LRPM in March that the Claimant should revert to his role as Sgt was not influenced by his complaints in the meetings in October 2022 and February 2023 with Mr Clayman. That decision was made because the Claimant was an acting Inspector, and the role was for a substantive

[500]It is our judgment that the complaint of victimisation fails and is dismissed.

[501]It is our judgment that the allegations contained in 1.6 fail and are dismissed.

[502]It is our judgment that Mr Nixon did not say that he had marked the Claimant down as 12/20 whereas his score should have been 15/20. It is also our judgment that Mr Nixon did not deliberately mark the Claimant down. The Claimant submitted that he had shown his application to other officers, and they had said that he should have got higher marks. We had no evidence of who these other officers were or whether they were of the same rank and experience as Mr Nixon. We did not hear from any of them.

[503]In that corporate recruitment process, Mr Nixon gave the Claimant the highest score out of all the candidates he marked. The forms show that he also gave a detailed explanation for his scores. Later, when discussing this with the Claimant he speculated that he could have given the Claimant more points for some of his answers and less for at least one other. In doing so he was not admitting to any wrongdoing but was musing that his scores could have been different. Scoring a job application is not an exact science.

[504]However, even if he had scored the Claimant 15/20, this allegation completely ignores the fact that the scores were subject to moderation by a different panel. Mr Nixon’s scores were only one part of the process. An independent panel of senior officers sit down together and go over the scores to ensure that they are benchmarked to the correct level and that they are appropriate to the answers that the candidate gave to the same questions.

[505]We found that in this process, the Claimant was one of a number of officers who had their scores moderated down. Some of those officers were white. Another Asian officer, Reshma Sher had her score confirmed in this process, which meant that it was unchanged.

[506]In our judgment it is highly likely that the Claimant’s score of 12/20 in the corporate Inspector process of February 2023 was the appropriate score for the answers the Claimant gave. Even if another manager would have scored the Claimant differently or Mr Nixon himself would have scored him differently on another day, we had no evidence from which we could infer that he consciously or sub-consciously gave the Claimant a score of 12 because of, or partly because of the Claimant’s race or because of any complaints of discrimination the Claimant made to Mr Clayman at those two meetings.

[507]Mr Nixon did not mark Simon Biggs’ application. Mr Biggs is therefore not a proper comparator as his circumstances were different to the Claimant. The white officers who were also scored in that process, who also had their scores reduced were proper comparators and that shows that having your score reduced was unrelated to

[508]It is our judgment that the score of 12/20 was not less favourable treatment. It was the appropriate score for the answers the Claimant gave to the questions and the competencies he had to address.

[509]It is also our judgment that a hypothetical comparator would also have scored 12 with the answers the Claimant gave to the questions.

[510]It is our judgment that Mr Nixon supported the Claimant in his appeal against the moderation and took a risk in doing so. He was doing what he could to support the

[511]The evidence was that Mr Nixon marked the Claimant based on the answers he gave. Mr Nixon also gave the Claimant copies of the information he used to support his application for promotion so that the Claimant could see what level of information was required. Mr Nixon was motivated by a desire to support the Claimant. He did not score the Claimant’s application as 12/20 because the Claimant did protected acts. In our judgment, he went out of his way to support the Claimant and to help him succeed.

[512]It is our judgment that allegation 1.7 fails as an allegation of less favourable treatment because of race and as an allegation of victimisation. It is dismissed.

[513]It is our judgment that in February 2023, the moderation panel, which included Ms Butterfield, followed the Respondent’s benchmarking process. It is our judgment that there was no evidence that the Respondent failed to follow their process or that their process was biased or resulted in less favourable treatment to the Claimant or other Asian officers.

[514]In this corporate recruitment process, the Claimant received a score of 12 which was later moderated down to 11. The Claimant did not progress to the next stage. Being disappointed does not necessarily mean that one has been subjected to less favourable treatment. The Claimant failed the process, when a score of 12 would have been considered a pass and allow him to progress to the level of substantive Inspector. However, we did not have evidence that Ms Butterfield deliberately marked him down.

[515]The Claimant was not treated less favourably because of his race as it is our judgment that 10 candidates, including Simon Biggs, Christopher Buckman, Claire Grey, Richard Cunningham, Joseph Seales and Jasbir Singh Randhawa, all had their scores marked down as a result of the same benchmarking process, by the same moderation panel, and that some of those comparators were white. They were therefore treated the same as the Claimant. Out of all the applicants we heard about in that process, 5 including Simon Biggs, Darren Farr, Claire Gray and Reshma Sher passed the process. The rest, including the Claimant scored less than 12 and therefore failed.

[516]It is the Claimant’s case that the Respondent compared his answers with that given by white officers. It is our judgment that the moderation panel would have compared all the scores to ensure consistency and fairness and that would have included comparing the Claimant’s answers with those given by Asian officers - Ms Sher and Mr Randhawa - as well as with white officers.

[517]Ms Butterfield did not mark the Claimant’s answers on her own. She was part of a panel, and we did not have evidence to suggest that she influenced the rest of the panel to change the Claimant’s score so that he did not get to the next stage of the promotion process. It was not our finding that the scores had been tampered with. There had been admin errors, which we have already commented on separately.

[518]It is our judgment that the Claimant has failed to prove that he suffered less favourable treatment by the scoring process with the moderation panel. He was scored fairly and appropriately, and in the same way as white officers.

[519]It is also our judgment that the Respondent has proven a non-discriminatory and cogent reason for the scoring. The moderation process was part of the corporate, recruitment process which the Claimant took part in. It was applied to everyone who took part in the recruitment. There was no evidence that the Claimant’s scores were done unfairly. It is our judgment that the Claimant’s application was marked fairly, and the moderation process was conducted properly and in accordance with the Respondent’s process and we did not have evidence that the moderation panel’s scores were influenced or affected consciously or unconsciously by the Claimant’s

[520]The allegation of less favourable treatment at 1.8 fails and is dismissed.

[521]As far as the allegation of victimisation is concerned, Ms Butterfield was aware of the meetings that some minority ethnic officers had with Mr Clayman in October 2020 and February 2021. However, she was not aware that the Claimant was one of them. This scoring happened before the Claimant’s email to Mr Byrne. She had a conversation with Mr Asghar in March 2023 in which she learnt about the Claimant’s employment tribunal claim.

[522]However, it is our judgment that the Claimant has failed to prove that she marked him down in March 2023, as part of the moderation process, because he had done protected acts. She did not do the moderation process on her own. She was part of the panel. We did not have evidence that she told the rest of the panel what marks to award the Claimant or that she had undue influence over them. They were senior officers, and it is likely that they scored the Claimant in the moderation panel according to their own opinions.

[523]It is our judgment that the Claimant had not been deliberately marked down in March 2023 because he had done protected acts.

[524]This complaint of victimisation fails and is dismissed. Claim 2, Allegation 1.9

[525]The allegation is incorrect as the email was sent by Mr Byrne and not Mr Rolston. It is our judgment that on 15 March 2023, the Claimant along with everyone else, was told that he had to re-apply in the acting Inspector process, as it was almost 12 months since his last application, and it certainly would have been 12 months by the time his application was assessed.

[526]We did not consider that being told that he had to submit an application in response to an advert was less favourable treatment. It was also not less favourable treatment in comparison to Mr Feather as he was also told that he had to re-apply.

[527]The Claimant was not there to witness the conversation that Mr Feather had with his manager, in which he was told to apply. He reported to the Claimant that he had been ‘encouraged’ to apply, but we do not know whether that was an accurate representation of what happened. The Claimant took statements by colleagues as the complete truth, but it may not have been. It is likely that, given Mr Feather’s reluctance to apply at the start of the process, that he would have only applied if he had been told that he had to.

[528]It was Mr Byrne’s intention that all acting Inspectors would need to re-apply. This would be regardless of ethnicity. That was his intention when he drafted the policy and when he wrote the advert. It is our judgment that the Claimant was not singled out.

[529]In our judgment, the Claimant wanted to be singled out and exempted from reapplying as an exception to the rule. Mr Byrne refused to do so and asked the Claimant to apply as everyone else was having to do.

[530]It is incorrect to say that Mr Graham did not apply. He also applied in this round as Mr Nixon marked his application. Both he and Mr Farr had also applied in the corporate process a month earlier, in February.

[531]It is our judgment that everyone had to re-apply, which included the Claimant. In reality not enough people applied which was why the Respondent made the decision that everyone would stay in post, regardless of ethnicity or gender. That was taken because of the unclear advert, which the Claimant’s colleagues had found confusing. Hardly anyone applied because of that. The decision taken to allow everyone to stay in post benefitted everyone, including but not exclusively, some white officers.

[532]It is our judgment that this was not less favourable treatment. This complaint fails and is dismissed.

[533]It is our judgment that the Claimant’s third protected act was to write to Mr Byrne on 13 March, to make allegations of unfair treatment. The Claimant does not actually refer to race in this email. Mr Byrne was aware of the Claimant’s other protected acts.

[534]It is our judgment that Mr Byrne did not write this advert because of the Claimant’s protected act. He wrote it because the Respondent wanted all acting Inspectors and prospective acting Inspectors to apply on a regular basis to remain on the select list so that they would be available for posting, as and when vacancies came up. They did not want anyone remaining as an acting Inspector who did not aspire to becoming a substantive Inspector and so this was an attempt to refresh the list.

[535]It is our judgment that this was not an act of victimisation and was not less favourable treatment on the grounds of race. Allegation 1.9 fails and is dismissed.

[536]At paragraph 97 of the Claimant’s submissions he said that he believes Mr Bell’s rejection of his appeal was an act of victimisation and not of direct race discrimination.

[537]It is likely that Mr Bell was aware, following handover from Paul Trevers and from conversations with Mr Asghar and others, about the meetings that ethnic minority officers had with Mr Clayman in 2020 and 2021. When he arrived at the BCU in 2022, he was made aware of those meetings, but he did not know that the Claimant had attended those meetings as no names had been taken and the Claimant did not mention it to him. Mr Bell hosted another such meeting with Mr Asghar and others in June 2023.

[538]We did not have evidence that Mr Bell was hostile towards the Claimant because of those meetings. His evidence was that the process of acting up needed overhauling and that he understood why there had been complaints about it. He agreed that the process needed to be made more transparent.

[539]It is unlikely that rejecting the appeal was less favourable treatment. Hardly any appeals against moderation are submitted and even less are supported by line managers or by Mr Bell. It is our judgment that if a hypothetical comparator who was white submitted an appeal against the moderation panel’s scores on the basis that their answers should not be compared with others’ answers, their appeal would also have been rejected. We say this because the SOP asks the moderation panel to do exactly what this moderation panel did.

[540]If it is considered that the rejection of the appeal was less favourable treatment then it is our judgment that the Respondent has given a clear, non-discriminatory reason for the rejection of the appeal.

[541]Mr Bell’s clear evidence was that he rejected the Claimant’s appeal because comparison with other candidates’ evidence was not only permitted but explicitly endorsed by the relevant guidance. In the presentation of his case, the Claimant was unable to show why the guidance should not be applied in his case. The moderation process conducted by the panel was in accordance with the Respondent’s procedure. Mr Bell applied the SOP and could not find any fault with the way in which the moderation had been conducted.

[542]The Claimant could not point to any procedural error by the moderation panel. His ground of appeal was that the panel should not have compared his answers to answers given by other candidates. However, the procedure for moderation allowed the panel to do just that. This process was applied to everyone whose scores were moderated, not just the Claimant.

[543]We also note that Mr Bell supported the Claimant’s appeal the following year.

[544]In the circumstances, it is our judgment that Mr Bell was unable to support the Claimant’s appeal against the moderation panel’s scores because there was no breach of procedure, and the panel had followed the Respondent’s guidance. There was no evidence from which we could infer that his decision to reject the appeal was related to or because of the Claimant’s race or because of any protected act that he had done.

[545]The complaint of victimisation fails and is dismissed.

[546]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that Ms Butterfield failed to challenge the statement made by Mr Vandenburg, which was that the provision of the resource requested by the Claimant was not a priority. The Claimant had asked the TTCG meeting to provide a response vehicle or funds to allow him to secure a response vehicle.

[547]In our judgment, this is different from not supporting the motor vehicle strategy. Not that long before this meeting, Ms Butterfield asked the Claimant to set up this strategy, so it is our judgment that it is highly likely that she supported it and was unlikely to deliberately sabotage it. However, this meeting was not just about the motor vehicle strategy. It was a funding and strategy meeting, for the whole of the BCU and it is likely that there were competing priorities vying for funds and attention.

[548]Mr Vandenburg was senior in rank to Ms Butterfield. Also, this was not a Metpriority across London, which meant that it was not important to Mr Vandenburg. When he stated that it was not a priority, she decided that she would not challenge a senior officer in the meeting and instead, she would agree with him. That did not equate a lack of support for the work the Claimant had done with the motor vehicle strategy. Just a few weeks before, Ms Butterfield had thanked the Claimant for his work on this. It is highly unlikely that she had changed her mind in such a short span of time. It is more likely that she felt that it was politically expedient to agree with Mr Vandenburg in the meeting rather than contradict him in the presence of junior officers. In the hearing Mr Lingard agreed that this was most likely a political decision.

[549]As already stated, Ms Butterfield was aware of the meetings held by Mr Clayman. It is unlikely that she was aware that the Claimant had been at and had spoken at those meetings.

[550]The ET1 complaint form to the Tribunal had been submitted on 14 March 2023. It had not been served by 15 March. It was not served until 12 April 2023. We cannot see how Ms Butterfield would have known that the Claimant had brought a complaint alleging race discrimination at this point. The Claimant told Mr Nixon that he had brought a claim in the employment tribunal, but we found it unlikely that he told him that it was about discrimination. Mr Nixon told Ms Butterfield that the Claimant had brought a complaint to the employment tribunal. Mr Asghar also told her about the Claimant’s case but that was later in March.

[551]It is also our judgment that Ms Butterfield chose not to argue with Mr Vandenburg at this meeting about what were Met-wide priorities, which was not the same as not supporting the Claimant.

[552]We did not have evidence from which we could infer that Ms Butterfield’s agreement with Mr Vandenburg that this was not a priority was done to embarrass the Claimant because of his race of because he had brought an employment tribunal claim or because he had done a protected act by complaining of race discrimination in meetings held 2 years earlier.

[553]Other people, including Mr Asghar, asked for money/funding in that meeting and they either did not get all of it or received no money at all. This was a funding meeting and not everyone was going to get what they asked for as the funds was less than what was required or needed.

[554]It is our judgment that Ms Butterfield did not fail to support the Claimant. She simply decided not to argue with Mr Vandenburg on that occasion.

[555]It is our judgment that this was not less favourable treatment to the Claimant as it was not his personal project. He had been given it to work on for the good of the community and the reduction in motor vehicle crime rather than of personal benefit to him.

[556]We had no information around Mr Rhodes later on securing the response vehicle. We do not know how it happened. The evidence was that it did not come through the TTCG. The Claimant was not sure of this in the hearing. Mr Rhodes was more senior than the Claimant, it was a different time – even if it was only a few weeks later as priorities may have shifted – and it was not through the TTCG. Ms Butterfield was not Mr Rhodes’ manager, and we do not know whether she supported his bid for the resources to secure a response vehicle, even if it came up at a TTCG meeting. It is therefore our judgment that Mr Rhodes is not an appropriate comparator.

[557]It is our judgment that Ms Butterfield would have agreed with Mr Vandenburg and not contradicted him in public, even if the Claimant had been white and had not done any protected acts.

[558]The complaint of less favourable treatment fails and is dismissed. There was no victimisation here either and that complaint fails and is dismissed.

[559]It is our judgment that the Claimant was told in January that Mr Handley had been appointed to the substantive Inspector post in Barking & Dagenham, which he could no longer occupy because he was an acting Inspector.

[560]It is therefore our judgment that it was not a surprise when he was told in March that the LRPM had confirmed the appointment. At least it should not have been a surprise. This was not Mr Nixon’s decision. It was the decision of the LRPM meeting chaired by Mr Rolston. The only new information on 16 March was the date on which Mr Handley would take over which was set as 1 May 2023. The Claimant was told that there were two Sgt roles, one at Havering and one at Redbridge. The LRPM had decided that he should be posted to Havering but once he expressed a preference for Redbridge, Mr Nixon asked the LRPM to confirm that this could be his posting, and it was agreed.

[561]Mr Nixon had not made any promises about how long the Claimant would stay in the acting Inspector role although both he and the Claimant had hoped that it would be until the summer. There were no guarantees as it was not in his control and there were other changes, such as long-term sickness, retirement or other occurrences that he had no control over, which could affect the length of the appointment. At the time that Mr Nixon discussed with the Claimant which of the two roles were suitable, they both thought that the Barking & Dagenham role would last longer. Then Ms Jenkins was promoted and that changed everything. We did not have evidence from which we could infer that Ms Jenkins’ promotion, the decision to make her previous role a substantive role and to recruit someone to it were all done because of the Claimant’s

[562]The Claimant actually remained in the role until May and there was a handover period, so he was not removed from the role in January or in March.

[563]The Claimant has referred to actual comparators in this allegation. We had limited evidence on these comparators. As far as Ms Hollenberg is concerned, it is this Tribunal’s judgment that she was not in a similar position to the Claimant. In her situation, the postholder, Mr Canter, was not due to return to work as he were on long term sick. Mr Canter had not been promoted and was not expected to return to work imminently, as Ms Jenkins was. The post the Claimant occupied as an acting Inspector became a substantive post once Ms Jenkins was promoted, which meant that it had to be filled by a substantive Inspector. Mr Canter was off on long-term sick, and it was expected that he would retire. By the time he retired, Ms Hollenberg was already on maternity leave and someone else was covering the post as an acting Inspector. When Mr Canter retired, his post became a substantive post, in the same way that Ms Jenkins’ post did, and Mr Noori was appointed to it. It was no longer suitable to be held as an acting Inspector. This was exactly what happened in the Claimant’s situation.

[564]It is our judgment that Mr Chatters also stepped back to being a Sgt when Mr Noori returned to the role when it became a substantive Inspector role on 23 November 2022. That is the same as what happened to the Claimant.

[565]Mr Pollock was asked to act up on an ad hoc basis when Mr Chatters became unwell while covering Mr Noori’s post. He later resigned.

[566]It is our judgment that the Claimant’s comparators were treated in the same way as he was. When they are appointed as acting Inspectors, they would cover that role until a decision is made by the Respondent on whether the substantive Inspector will be returning to the role or whether there needs to be a new substantive Inspector recruited to it. Once that decision is made the acting will have to vacate the post and a substantive Inspector will be appointed. There may be times such as unexpected sickness or when someone retires at short notice, where an ad hoc appointment needs to be made.

[567]We did not have evidence from which we could infer that the decision to appoint Mr Handley as the substantive Inspector to the Barking & Dagenham role from 1 May 2023 was made because of the Claimant’s race. It was made because Ms Jenkins was promoted, and the Claimant was not a substantive Inspector.

[568]Mr Rolston was not aware of the Claimant’s attendance at the meetings with Mr Clayman. He was also not aware of the Claimant’s email to Mr Byrne on 13 March 2023 until Mr Byrne sent it to him. Mr Rolston did not perceive it as raising issues of race discrimination.

[569]It is our judgment that the decision of the LRPM in March 2023 to appoint Mr Handley to the substantive Inspector role was also not made because the Claimant had done protected acts.

[570]The Claimant’s complaints of less favourable treatment and of victimisation at 1.12 fails and are dismissed.

[571]It is our judgment that Mr Codrington did not know the Claimant. The Claimant also did not know Mr Codrington and assumed that he was white, but he was not, he was of mixed race. We also do not know whether all the comparators the Claimant referred to in this allegation would describe themselves as white.

[572]Mr Codrington was not aware of the meetings that the Claimant and others had with Mr Clayman, and he was also not aware of any of the Claimant’s other protected

[573]As this is an allegation of discrimination, the question for the Tribunal is not whether there were other officers who could have been asked to cover the shift but whether Mr Codrington asked the Claimant to do so because of his race, whether consciously or sub-consciously or because he had done a protected act.

[574]It is our judgment that the Claimant was the In Frame Inspector that day and had indicated a willingness to work an early turn, if necessary. Those facts were not disputed. It is also our judgment that the Claimant had asked for the day to be protected, which Mr Codrington did.

[575]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that in asking the Claimant as the In Frame Inspector to cover the shift, Mr Codrington was simply doing his job which was to ensure that the BCU was properly resourced, and all jobs were covered. The Claimant has listed 9 officers who he says could have had their rest days cancelled instead of him. We did not hear evidence about most of those individuals. Also, as stated above the case is not whether there was anyone else who could have worked that shift. There would always be other officers who could work. The question for the Tribunal is as stated above and whether choosing the Claimant to work that shift was because of his race or because he did a protected act. As far as comparators are concerned, it is our judgment, that had the Claimant been a white officer who was the In Frame Inspector that week and had indicated that he could work the early shift, if needed, it is highly likely that Mr Codrington would have asked him to work in the same way he did the

[576]The Claimant did not push back when Mr Codrington asked him to cover the shift. The Claimant had not requested a red circle day when he asked for this day to be marked on the CARMs system.

[577]It is our judgment that we did not have facts from which we could infer that Mr Codrington asked the Claimant to cover a shift and cancelled his rest day because of his race or because he had done protected acts. Mr Codrington had to do this on a regular basis to ensure that all shifts were covered.

[578]He would do so regardless of race. We did not have evidence from which we could infer that Mr Codrington made any decision regarding the Claimant because of his race or because he did protected acts.

[579]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that these complaints of less favourable treatment and victimisation fail and is dismissed.

[580]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that the Claimant was not overlooked when he was not appointed to the acting up role at Redbridge. It is our judgment that at the time the job came up, the Claimant was in an acting up role for Barking and Dagenham. It did not make operational sense to move him to the Redbridge role when he was in an existing acting role.

[581]Once again, the question for the Tribunal is not whether he could have been appointed to the role, but whether the Respondent’s decision to allow him to remain at Barking & Dagenham until the role cane to an end on 1 May 2023 and Mr Handley took over as substantive Inspector, was an act of less favourable treatment because of his race or was an act of victimisation.

[582]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that moving the Claimant to the acting Inspector post at Redbridge would have meant having to put someone else in the Barking & Dagenham role for a short time, i.e. until 1 May. That would have disrupted the work that was being done in Barking & Dagenham and meant three people having covered that role in a short space of time, which was undesirable.

[583]The Respondent has to balance the ambitions of all its officers with the services to the community and the need to develop trust and continuity with community partners.

[584]In our judgment, when the post at Redbridge became vacant because of Richard Pollock’s resignation, it was known that the Claimant’s role was coming to an end on 1 May. The decision that he should remain in that role was to his benefit as he got to complete the projects he was working on and collect evidence that he could use for promotion. Once the process was complete, it is our judgment that Reshma Sher scored higher than the Claimant and was appointed as the acting Inspector. The Respondent’s policy was that the person with the highest score in the process would be offered the appointment first. That happened in May 2022 when the Claimant scored the highest and he was offered the choice of roles, ahead of Mr Feather.

[585]Mr Chatters became acting Inspector for a short time while the process was run, and this took longer than had been anticipated. At some point, Mr Ross was also covering the role. Ms Sher was appointed when the process ended. The Claimant could have been appointed to the acting role and Mr Nixon considered doing so but, in the end, the need for continuity at Barking & Dagenham meant that he was left in his post until it ended on 1 May rather than be moved. If he had been moved, the BCU would have had to move someone else to cover B&D until then. In our judgment, this was unrelated to the Claimant’s race.

[586]There were no facts from which we could infer that the decision to leave the Claimant in the Barking & Dagenham role, while the recruitment process was happening, was because of his race or because of the complaints he made at the meetings with Mr Clayman or otherwise.

[587]In terms of comparators, we had evidence of other acting Inspectors who were white who were returned to their Sgt position, when the acting role came to an end. It is our judgment that Mr Feather was returned to a Sgt role in September 2023, Mr Oldfield was returned to a Sgt role in November 2021, when Mr Noori displaced him as a substantive Inspector.

[588]We did not have evidence about Ms Bartlett. The Claimant also relies on Matt Ross as a comparator. The Claimant has here conflated substantive Inspectors with acting Inspectors. Mr Ross was a substantive Inspector, having been promoted in March 2019.

[589]In the circumstances, it is our judgment we did not have evidence from which we could infer that the decision to leave the Claimant in the Barking & Dagenham role until Mr Handley took over, was made because of the Claimant’s race. We did not have evidence from which we could infer that the decision that the Claimant would revert to his substantive role as Sgt was made because of his race as many white officers followed the same pattern, if they were in an acting role which then became a substantive role, and a substantive officer was then appointed.

[590]We did not have evidence that the decision that he should not be moved to cover the Redbridge acting role for a few months before Ms Sher was appointed, had been made because of race or had been influenced consciously or sub-consciously by the complaints the Claimant made to Mr Clayman in those meetings or even by the email he sent to Mr Byrne.

[591]This allegation fails as an allegation of less favourable treatment and as an allegation of victimisation.

[592]It is our judgment that on 22 March 2023, Ms Butterfield did not speak to anyone at the event, apart from a local authority partner. She did not praise the Claimant, but she also did not praise Dan Bacon or Messrs Ross, Holgate or Feather.

[593]It is our judgment that Ms Butterfield considered this event quite a sombre one as she focussed her remarks on the Casey report, which had been published within days of this meeting, and she was keen to reassure her officers about it and keep up their morale.

[594]It is our judgment that both Ms Butterfield and Mr Nixon had previously spoken to Mr Bacon about his way of operating in the borough and where the local authority may have perceived him as falling short or not meeting their expectations. As far as we were told, he was not praised at this event or elsewhere.

[595]In our judgment it would have been appropriate and in keeping with its accountability to the local authority for the Respondent to have responded to Mr Lingard’s formal complaint about Mr Bacon. But even if there was no formal response, it is our judgment that informal action was taken which the Claimant was not told about and which he would not ordinarily have been told about.

[596]It is our judgment that this event happened before the Claimant brought a grievance against Ms Butterfield. The Claimant had by this time brought his employment tribunal claim but it was not served on the Respondent until April. Ms Butterfield did not know the contents of the claim although she may have known from her conversation with Mr Asghar that it complained of race discrimination.

[597]The Claimant invited her to the event. She attended and during lunch, she sat down at the table with her laptop open which may have signalled to those present that she did not want to talk. She did not speak to the Claimant and it unlikely that she spoke to anyone else apart from the local authority partner. We do not know why the Claimant interpreted that as her being hostile to him, in particular. It was not the Claimant’s case that he tried to speak to her, and she rebuffed him or that anyone else was talking to her.

[598]In the circumstances, it is our judgment that having put on this event, the Claimant had an expectation that the senior officer attending would speak to him and praise him for a successful event. Ms Butterfield did not do so possibly because that was not why she attended and because she was distracted by work and more significantly, by the Casey report and its implications for local policing. We did not have evidence from which we could infer that she chose not to speak to any of the officers there because the Claimant had complained of discrimination in meetings with Mr Clayman 2 years earlier or brought his employment tribunal claim or because of his race. She did not speak to anyone. The fact that she attended the event demonstrated her support for it and for the Claimant.

[599]Finally, an allegation of hostility suggests that she behaved in an antagonistic, aggressive or intimidating way towards the Claimant. The evidence was that she came just in time to speak, did so, sat for lunch, with her laptop open and left. There was nothing antagonistic or aggressive about that. It may not have been as sociable as the Claimant wanted but that does not make her behaviour on the day hostile or discriminatory because of race. There was no evidence of her socialising with white officers at this event, which meant that she was unsociable to everyone.

[600]The complaint fails as a complaint of less favourable treatment because of race and of victimisation because he did protected acts.

[601]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that sometime after he marked the Claimant’s application, Mr Nixon told the Claimant in a feedback discussion, which the Claimant had requested, that having looked at it again, he could have given different marks for two of his answers. We conclude that he was trying to assist the Claimant by giving him feedback.

[602]It is our judgment that the evidence showed that Mr Nixon marked the Claimant’s application in good faith and supported the Claimant in his challenge to the moderation decision. He also supported the Claimant by providing him with sample application answers for future competitions. Mr Nixon delayed advertising the Barking & Dagenham substantive role to allow the Claimant time to complete some work and to get as much evidence as he could to support future applications for substantive Inspector. The evidence was that Mr Nixon did not subject the Claimant to a detriment because he did protected acts. He also did not treat him less favourably because of his race.

[603]Mr Nixon gave the Claimant the highest score in that corporate Sgt to Inspector recruitment process. Any score Mr Nixon gave the Claimant was subject to moderation by a panel of senior officers.

[604]We did not have evidence from which we could infer that Mr Nixon’s scores of the Claimant’s application had been given because of his race, whether consciously or sub-consciously. We also did not have evidence from Mr Nixon’s treatment of the Claimant that the score he gave the Claimant was marked down because the Claimant did a protected act.

[605]This part of the allegation fails as an allegation of less favourable treatment on the grounds of race and of victimisation.

[606]The Claimant also attaches here an allegation that the decision not to recruit an acting Inspector at Havering was discrimination towards him because of his race and an act of victimisation.

[607]We accept Mr Nixon’s evidence that there had been a significant restructure of Sgt, Inspector and Superintendent roles between February and June 2023, after Mr Asghar was promoted. We had evidence of the charts Mr Nixon produced to assist the discussion between the senior officers. The decision on the structure was not taken until late April 2023.

[608]In addition, as already stated, it is our judgment that it did not make sense to post the Claimant to the acting Inspector role in Havering after Mr Asghar’s promotion as he had a full-time acting Inspector post at Barking & Dagenham up until 1 May 2023. The Claimant was already in an acting role.

[609]The decision not to recruit an acting Inspector to the role at Havering was not a detriment to the Claimant as he would not have been first in line for it. He was not the highest scoring person on the select list at that point. There were others ahead of him on the list who would have been considered before him. None of them were appointed to the role.

[610]Mr Oldfield was not appointed to the role at Havering. Mr Oldfield was appointed to the acting Inspector post at Redbridge, in different circumstances. It is our judgment that at the time that he was appointed to the acting post, the Respondent’s expectation was that the acting Inspector post in Redbridge was going to be for a longer period of time than it actually took. It is always difficult to predict how long such a vacancy would last. Just as the Claimant’s appointment to the role at Barking & Dagenham did not last as long as had been expected, the acting role at Redbridge also did not last as long as had originally been envisaged. We found that the situation resolved itself sooner than expected as the recruitment for a substantive Inspector ended quickly.

[611]By the time the Claimant could have been appointed, he was under Ms Kaur’s management. If Mr Nixon had not been considering the Claimant for the role, he would not have mentioned it to him at their meeting. It is our judgment that he wanted to do so and that covering all the roles as he was at the time was onerous for him. However, he was told by Mr Rolston that he was not to appoint anyone to the role because of the reorganisation. It is our judgment that once the organisation chart was agreed, the Havering role became a substantive role. Mr Rolston agreed that Mr Nixon could use applicants to the last round to appoint as it would save time and expense. Inspector Charlie Routley accepted the appointment. The permanent role was a substantive role, which meant that the Claimant was not entitled to be offered it.

[612]It is our judgment that this situation came about because of all the moving parts that management have to work with in relation to any vacancy. The Claimant has not proved facts from which we could infer that the decision not to move him into the acting Inspector role at Redbridge from February to May 2023 was because of his race and that Mr Rolston and/or Mr Nixon made that decision either consciously or subconsciously because of the Claimant’s race or because the Claimant did protected

[613]The allegation fails as an allegation of less favourable treatment and of victimisation.

[614]In our judgment, at her appointment Ms Kaur had a meeting with Mr Nixon and was made aware that the Claimant had brought a claim in the employment tribunal. She also spoke to Ms Butterfield who told her that it was likely that he was disappointed to not be in an acting Inspector role. Those were facts and were not negative statements about the Claimant. Ms Kaur certainly did not take them as such. It is our judgment that those were the only things that Ms Kaur was told about the Claimant. Although the Claimant stated in his witness statement that Ms Kaur mentioned to him that she had been told incorrect things about him, in the email that he sent to her after their meeting in June, he stated that it was he who told her that he believed that she had a preconceived conception of him. It is our judgment that she did not, and she did not agree with his categorisation.

[615]In our judgment, although Mr Nixon had sent her a briefing note, she had not really read it and wanted to meet and get a sense of the Claimant herself and not from anything anyone had told her. It is our judgment that there was nothing in that document that could be considered ‘negative’ towards the Claimant.

[616]It is our judgment that Ms Kaur was not negatively briefed about the Claimant by Ms Jenkins, Mr Nixon or Ms Butterfield. We did not have evidence that this happened.

[617]The allegation fails as an allegation of direct race discrimination and of victimisation.

[618]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that once Mr Handley took up the substantive Inspector role on 1 May 2023, the Claimant reverted to the role of Sgt. There was an acting Inspector process ongoing so that could have resulted in the Claimant being given another acting role. In the interim, he was to be a Sgt which was his substantive role, while the Respondent located another acting Inspector role for him or until he succeeded in a Sgt to substantive Inspector recruitment. The Claimant considered that to be a demotion.

[619]At the same time, the Claimant remained on the select list for acting Inspector roles, which is why Mr Sanderson continued to write to him to enquire whether his restrictions remained or whether he was now able to take up the EA400 role. The Claimant was unable to take this role up, due to his restrictions but the fact that he was still being considered meant that he had not been demoted to Sergeant.

[620]It is our judgment that there were not two acting Inspector roles available at that time that Mr Handley took over the B&D role. Once the organisational chart was agreed and settled, the post in Havering was for a substantive Inspector. The acting Inspector post at Redbridge was occupied by Reshma Sher who as we have already stated, scored more than the Claimant in the acting up process.

[621]The Claimant also complains that he was not provided with a substantive Sgt role. It is our judgment that the Claimant was posted to a substantive Sgt role. He was not expected to share the role with an acting Sergeant. The Claimant was assigned the Sgt role at Redbridge. As the senior officer, he failed to ensure that the acting Sgt reverted to his PC role. He allowed the handover period to go on for longer than was necessary. The Claimant as the senior officer had the authority to sort out that situation and revert the PC who had been acting up as an acting Police Sgt back their substantive PC role.

[622]It is our judgment that the Claimant was unhappy about having to work as a Sgt while he waited for another acting Inspector role to come up. He was reluctant to resume the role of Sgt again and saw it as a demotion, but it is unlikely that the Respondent saw it as such. Ms Butterfield emailed him on 12 May to remind him to parade with the team at Redbridge.

[623]It is our judgment that the Claimant reverting to his Sgt role did not happen because of his race. We have already set out above the names of white officers who reverted back to their Sgt roles in similar circumstances, when their stints as acting Inspectors come to an end. It is our judgment that there was no stigma attached to reverting in this way as opportunities to progress would come up often and everyone had the chance to go for them. It was expected that the Claimant would apply in the next round, in the same way that his colleagues did. It is our judgment that this was not less favourable treatment.

[624]It is also our judgment that the Claimant has failed to prove that these decisions were taken because of the Claimant’s race – whether consciously or sub-consciously. Also, he has failed to prove that they were taken because the Claimant did protected

[625]The allegation of less favourable treatment and victimisation fails and is dismissed.

[626]The Claimant was told that Mr Handley was appointed to the substantive Inspector role at Barking & Dagenham and that he would take up the post on 1 May 2023. In April, Mr Nixon told the Claimant that he would not be recruiting to the acting Inspector role in Havering. In April the Claimant was still working as the Barking & Dagenham acting Inspector. If he had been posted to Havering as an acting Inspector before it became a substantive role, it would have meant that someone else would have to be placed in his role at Barking & Dagenham for a few months until Mr Handley took up his role. The Respondent chose not to do so as it would have been disruptive. Also, the Claimant would still have had to move on around the same time, because the role at Havering became a substantive Inspector role around April/May at the end of the re-organisation.

[627]It is our judgment that on 1 May 2023, when the Claimant was available to be posted to other jobs, there was no other acting Inspector role that the Claimant could have been appointed to. By the end of the re-organisation, the post at Havering had been designated as a substantive Inspector post and Mr Routley was appointed to it. The acting Inspector post at Redbridge was filled by Reshma Sher who had scored more than the Claimant in the process.

[628]It is our judgment that the Claimant had been offered the EA400 role but decided that he could not do it because he required adjustments.

[629]We have already stated above that it is our judgment that the Claimant was not told to share the role of Sgt at Redbridge with an acting Police Sergeant. It would not have made sense for the Respondent to do this, as it would have resulted in a doubling of resources in one post. There was meant to be a handover period and once the work had been handed over to the Claimant, it was up to him to either refer to a senior manager the issue of the acting Sgt’s reluctance to revert to their PC role, so that it could be addressed or to address it himself.

[630]The Claimant referred to 8 comparators in paragraph 35 of the particulars of his second employment tribunal claim. We have been through most of them already and set out above our judgment in relation to those about whom we heard evidence. We did not hear evidence about Kevin Reece. It is also our judgment that there were different circumstances surrounding all these appointments and that they were not in the same situation as the Claimant. If the substantive postholder is sick and it is not known when they will return to work, it may be appropriate for someone to act up on an ad hoc basis. If someone is on maternity leave, then that is appropriate for someone to be appointed from the select list. If someone is sick and then they indicate that they are considering retirement, the Respondent is likely to let the actor remain in post until that is all finalised. This may look to an outsider who does not know all the facts as though the officer was appointed on an ad hoc basis when it was known at the start that they would be required for a continuous period of more than 56 weeks but that would not have been the case. Officers with specialist knowledge such as Caroline Clark and Wayne Fermor were appointed on an ad hoc basis, with the appointment being renewed regularly. Wayne Fermor’s evidence was that his appointment had to be reviewed on a regular basis and that he had only just, at the time of our hearing, reached the requisite 80 hours for this present appointment for him to be paid at a different rate. That indicated to us, and it is our judgment, that these were not appointments that were made and people left in the post indefinitely to get around using the select list. The appointments were made to fill a need, with officers who could meet that need, in the moment, until further notice.

[631]It is our judgment that the Claimant has not proved facts from which we could infer that these things happened because of the Claimant’s race or that they were in anyway related to his race or because he had done protected acts.

[632]The allegation fails and is dismissed.

[633]It was not clear to us whether the failure referred to at paragraph 42 of the particulars of claim of the second employment tribunal case at page 72 of the bundle, which is referred to in the list of issues; was a complaint in relation to the PSU’s investigation of the the Claimant or about his wife, as both are referred to in it. As we are only considering the Claimant’s case, we will only assess the PSU (Mr Watson’s) treatment of the Claimant’s complaints.

[634]It is our judgment that at the time he was asked to conduct this review, Mr Watson was from a different BCU and did not know the Claimant. He also did not have close relationships with the officers the Claimant complained about. It was his job to triage or review the Claimant’s complaints about the SLT and Mr Nixon and Ms Butterfield in particular. In our judgment the scope of what he could do under the Respondent’s regulations was quite narrow. He had to rely solely on the documents submitted and could not interview anyone before coming to a conclusion about the strength of the complaint and whether disciplinary action was warranted. He was not asked to conduct an investigation. From that review, he concluded that the information he had, did not show evidence of misconduct by either Ms Butterfield or Mr Nixon.

[635]In our judgment, the Police Conduct Regulations restricted what he could do. He made findings of fact from the documents in his possession. He assessed whether the documents showed Mr Nixon and Ms Butterfield’s culpability and whether they showed evidence of discrimination. He decided that the Claimant’s issue was with the scoring and appointments to acting positions and that even if those scores could have been done differently, they would not be a matter of misconduct but a matter of judgment, which should be addressed by someone more familiar with scoring than he was. He did allow for the possibility that the employment tribunal may find discrimination and if so, the DPS would be able to revisit the complaints once our judgment is made.

[636]We accept the Respondent’s submissions that if he wanted to treat the Claimant less favourably because of his race he would not have emailed the DPS and asked that his review remain on file so that there would be a corporate memory of it, pending the outcome of the employment tribunal proceedings. Also, if he wanted to restrict the Claimant’s access to future avenues of complaint he would not have included in his letter, information about how the matter could be taken further.

[637]Mr Watson did his job properly in that he assessed the documents provided to him by the Claimant and decided based on that assessment, whether there was evidence of discrimination and misconduct, which would have required him to open a full investigation. The Claimant submitted that Mr Watson’s approach to the investigation was ‘narrow-minded’ and that he did not investigate his complaint or attempt to gain more information. It is our judgment that this shows that the Claimant has misunderstood Mr Watson’s role. As the first tier of the Respondent’s investigation process, Mr Watson’s job was not to conduct a further investigation. He did not contact the Claimant for a statement because the Regulations did not allow him to do so. We conclude that were not referred to a copy of the Regulations because the Claimant did not dispute its contents.

[638]Mr Watson’s job was to assess the complaint without conducting any further investigation and make an assessment whether it warranted further resources being spent on it. He decided that it did not. It is our judgment that his decision was based on his assessment of the documents provided by the Tribunal and not because of the Claimant’s race. He left it open for the matter of misconduct proceedings to be raised again, depending on the outcome of the employment tribunal, and depending on the findings made.

[639]We did not agree with the Claimant’s submission that Mr Watson’s motivation for closing the investigation was a reluctance to ‘rock the boat’. Mr Watson is part of the unit that exists to investigate fellow police officers and therefore rocking the boat or making difficult or unpopular decisions that could affect another officer’s future was likely to be familiar to him.

[640]It is our judgment that the Claimant has failed to prove facts from which we could infer that Mr Watson’s decision not to proceed with misconduct disciplinary action against Ms Butterfield and Mr Nixon was because of the Claimant’s race. it is also our judgment that his decision that there was no actionable misconduct or evidence of race discrimination was not influenced by or made because the Claimant had done

[641]The allegations at 1.20 fails and are dismissed.

[642]It is our judgment that Ms Kaur did not quote the Claimant’s exact words in her email dated 11 May, but it was not apparent to this Tribunal how her misquotation was a false allegation against the Claimant. The Claimant did not make this allegation clear.

[643]Ms Kaur was not trying to accurately quote the Claimant but was attempting to summarise what he had said. It was not a direct quote, but it is our judgment that the meaning of the phrase the Claimant used was not vastly different from the phrase Ms Kaur used and would certainly not have caused the Claimant to be considered negatively by anyone. The meaning of both phrases was that the Claimant challenged Ms Kaur’s instruction to him that if he needed an OH referral, she would refer it to his line manager, who at the time was Mr Ross. This was therefore not a false allegation. The phrase she used accurately recorded that the Claimant had objected to being referred to Mr Ross for the OH referral.

[644]It was our judgment that the referral to OH could have been done by Ms Kaur, and that it was also appropriate for her to ask the Claimant to refer the request to Mr Ross. She did not fail to complete the referral as she asked the Claimant to come back once he had been to his GP and if there needed to be a referral to OH, she would ask Mr Ross to do it.

[645]The fact is that neither Ms Kaur nor Mr Ross were aware of the Claimant’s medical circumstances. She was not in a better position to make the referral to OH than Mr Ross was.

[646]It is our judgment that Ms Kaur did not take against the Claimant and had not been negatively briefed against him.

[647]Ms Kaur did say in the grievance interview that she had the impression that the Claimant did not like being managed by a Sikh female. We do not know when this impression was formed and whether it was after this exchange between them or before. It is likely that it was after. The statement shows that by the time she gave this statement she had drawn a negative conclusion about the Claimant and that this was mainly from his ethnicity. This could lead the Tribunal to infer that her treatment of the Claimant was affected by her perception of him as an Asian man.

[648]However, Ms Kaur’s communication with the Claimant in these emails was not less favourable treatment. No detriment was done to the Claimant by this exchange of emails or the wording thereof. In our judgment, Ms Kaur did not choose the wording of the email because the Claimant was Asian or to victimise him. Also, the Respondent gave a cogent, non-discriminatory reason for the contents of these emails. Ms Kaur wanted to wait until the Claimant had been to his GP and if he needed an OH referral, she would refer it to his line manager, who at the time was Mr Ross. That was perfectly reasonable and neutral management action and not a detriment.

[649]Also, she was not aware that the Claimant had asked Ms Jenkins to complete the OH referral as he had not gone back to her after his GP appointment, as promised. Ms Jenkins was not in the Claimant’s line management chain and also did not have firsthand knowledge of his medical issues. The Claimant may have preferred Ms Jenkins, but it was not a detriment or less favourable treatment to refer him to his line manager to make an OH referral.

[650]It is our judgment that Ms Kaur did not make up a false allegation against the Claimant. Also, Ms Kaur did not fail to complete the Claimant’s OH referral as he never went back to her to do the referral after his GP appointment. These actions were unconnected to the Claimant’s race and the Claimant’s protected acts or to Ms Kaur’s opinion of him which she expressed to the grievance investigator sometime later.

[651]The allegations at 1.21 fail as allegations of less favourable treatment because of his race and of victimisation for doing protected acts. They are dismissed.

[652]This allegation is actually three allegations in one. The first allegation is that on 17 May 2023, at the LRPM the Claimant’s white colleagues were all given priority on acting up roles while he was offered the Ops Room role. It is our judgment that the decision to allow all acting Inspectors to remain in post was made because of the advert placed in March 2023, which had been badly drafted, which meant that an insufficient number of acting Inspectors applied to be put on the select list. This did not become apparent until after the process came to an end. Mr Rolston asked Mr Sanderson and Mr Byrne to come up with a fair solution to the issue as it had caused confusion among the Claimant and his colleagues. The chain of emails between them was dated after the process concluded. The content of the emails show that this was unrelated to the ethnicity of those who had applied, and that the Respondent’s aim was to ensure that all acting Inspectors had a fair opportunity to go through the process. The decision that everyone should be put on the list and that all currently acting Inspectors would remain in post, was confirmed at the LRPM meeting.

[653]This decision benefitted all the acting Inspectors, including Jas Randhawa who the Claimant describes in his pleadings as Indian and who was therefore not white. It is our judgment that it would have benefitted all acting Inspectors and was not done to only benefit white acting Inspectors. It would also have benefitted the Claimant because even if he had failed, he would still have been put on the list.

[654]It is our judgment that this was not ‘giving priority’ to the Claimant’s white colleagues. The Claimant, Reshma Sher, Sam Horvath and all the other successful applicants were discussed in turn during the LRPM on 17 May and offered roles. They were discussed in scoring order, which in our judgment was appropriate. It is our judgment that Reshma Sher, who was also not white, was not offered an unimportant role or a role that did not have priority. She was offered the acting Inspector role at Redbridge, which was also likely to be an important role and a role the Claimant stated that he should have been given. This again demonstrates that priority roles were not only offered to white officers at this meeting.

[655]The second is that the Claimant was offered the Ops Room role. The way that this allegation is phrased suggests that the Ops Room role, the EA400 role, was less desirable than the other roles. It was not put to the Respondent’s witnesses that this role was less desirable and not equivalent to the other acting Inspector roles in the Respondent. The Claimant’s colleagues did not think of it as less desirable as Mr Horvath, who we were told was white, took it up once the Claimant felt unable to do so. The Claimant was offered the EA400 role because he was next on the priority list because of his score and having passed his Part 1. It is our judgment that the offer of the EA 400 role was not a detriment to the Claimant and was not done because of his race or because he did a protected act. Being offered an acting Inspector role cannot be a detriment because it was what the Claimant applied for and wanted. Once he secured a place on the list, it was open to the Respondent to offer him any of the acting Inspector roles it had. As it turned out, his need for adjustments meant that he felt that he could not take up the role but that does not mean that offering him the role was less favourable treatment. It was later offered to a white acting Inspector, Sam Horvath, who accepted it. The Claimant was treated the same way that this white comparator was.

[656]The third part of this allegation was that the Claimant was forced to re-apply for acting up roles. When the advert was placed, Mr Byrne was clear that everyone needed to apply. Unfortunately, he had not made that clear in the advert. When the Claimant sought clarity, he was told that he had to apply, which was the Respondent’s clear, stated intention. That was the Respondent’s position all the way through, which is why Mr Feather was also told by his manager that he had to apply. However, it became apparent at the end of the process, that lots of other acting Inspectors did not think that they had to apply, and they had not done so. It is unlikely that they raised any queries about it or spoke to anyone about it and so were not personally told to apply. The Respondent did not want to exclude anyone and so Messrs Byrne and Sanderson recommended that all acting Inspectors, whether they passed or failed, should be put on the select list. This was confirmed at the LRPM. The Claimant was not exposed to any risk of not being put on the list, even if he had failed. There was no detriment to him because he had done a protected act or otherwise and it was not less favourable treatment. He applied in the same way he had applied on every occasion that an advert for acting Inspectors was posted in the period under consideration. He did ask to be exempted from having to apply on this occasion but he and everyone who asked was told that they had to apply. He was treated no differently from his colleagues.

[657]It is our judgment that there was no less favourable treatment to the Claimant in these three allegations and he was not subjected to a detriment because he had done a protected act.

[658]The allegation fails and is dismissed.

[659]It is our judgment that in her email to all officers on 17 May 2023, Ms Kaur was simply providing them with information on their colleagues. By sending this email she made no decision on the Claimant’s posting. In the email she made no comment on his scores, and she did not embarrass him by putting his personal information regarding his health and the reasons why he believed that he could not take up the EA400 position. The information in the email was fairly neutral and simply recorded the facts. It was not prejudicial to the Claimant and did not put him in a bad light. She could not leave him out of the email as that would have possibly drawn more attention to him.

[660]It is our judgment that there was no less favourable treatment in including the words ‘for reasons you are already aware of’ in the email. It kept his confidentiality and made it clear that there were matters that no one else needed to know. The 17 May email also included congratulations to the Claimant for securing a place on the select list. This would have let his colleagues know that this was a good thing and a developing situation, as it was for all acting officers. In our judgment, this did not undermine or isolate him.

[661]The words in Ms Kaur’s email dated 17 May 2023 which refer to the Claimant did not treat the Claimant less favourably because of his race and did not subject him to a detriment because he did protected acts.

[662]The allegation fails and is dismissed.

[663]It was not clear to the Tribunal why the Claimant objected to Ms Kaur inviting Ms Sher, his new line manager, to the one-to-one meeting on 24 May. The Claimant knew that she had been invited before he attended the meeting, and he asked Ms Kaur about it. He was told that it was because Ms Sher was going to be his line manager. With this knowledge, the Claimant decided to attend the meeting.

[664]In his witness statement the Claimant states that he thought that Ms Kaur invited Ms Sher to anger him because she thought it would anger him to have two Sikh females. This was not put to Ms Kaur in cross examination. It is likely that this was not something he thought at the time and having read Ms Kaur’s statement to the grievance investigation, the Claimant has retrospectively come to this belief. However, we do not find that this was the purpose of inviting Ms Sher, and we do not understand why Ms Kaur as a senior manager would want to anger the Claimant or what purpose that would serve. The Claimant’s email, which recorded their discussion in the meeting shows that although they had a difference of opinion on how to respond to perceived discrimination in the workplace, she was supportive and that they had a positive meeting. There was no attempt to anger him.

[665]It is our judgment that the evidence shows that Ms Sher was invited as she was the Claimant’s new line manager. She had to leave because of an unrelated emergency in the community.

[666]Inviting Ms Sher to the meeting was not a detriment to the Claimant, and it was not less favourable treatment because of his race or otherwise. He accepted Ms Kaur’s invitation to meet, and attended the meeting knowing that Ms Sher, his new line manager would be there.

[667]The allegation fails and is dismissed. Allegations 1.25, 1.26 and 1.27

[668]These allegations concern the Claimant’s leave booked across August and September 2023. Firstly, in our judgment, Ms Butterfield is a senior manager and as such, she may sometimes have cause to email a junior officer to take them to task about something or to query their actions. That is not in itself an act of discrimination. A senior officer or manager may have to take up an issue of not following procedure or to query an action by a junior report. To do so would not be an act of less favourable treatment even if the junior report did not like being told that they had done something wrong.

[669]On this occasion, the Claimant had booked a period of leave which Ms Butterfield queried as it added up to a total of 7 weeks and spanned a bank holiday. Mr Nixon confirmed that he had approved some of that leave. Some of the leave had been approved directly by the OSE. In fact, all the leave had been approved but it had not been looked at as a period of 7 weeks which included the Notting Hill Carnival Monday, until it went to Ms Butterfield for final approval.

[670]However, the act of querying this as Ms Butterfield did in this email was not in our judgment a hostile act. Ms Butterfield was sterner with Mr Nixon in her email to him than she was in her email to the Claimant. In her email to the Claimant, she was clear that the leave was still authorised, so that he did need to worry about that. There was nothing in Ms Butterfield’s email that could be considered hostile. It is also our judgment that there was nothing in the email that related to race and sending the email was not an act of less favourable treatment. It was also not a detriment because of a protected act.

[671]It is our judgment that Mr Nixon was not lying when he said that he did not remember granting the leave. It is quite likely that he did not recall it as it was not a memorable event for him. He approved leave for many of his direct reports, given that he received over 100 emails a day, including may requests for annual leave. The leave was special for the Claimant as it included paternity leave, and he was no doubt excited about the birth of his child but approving the leave was not special to Mr Nixon and there was no reason why the details of the leave he approved for the Claimant would have stood out to him. It is our judgment that Mr Nixon genuinely did not recall granting the leave and was honest when he said this to Ms Butterfield.

[672]There was no evidence before us that showed that Mr Nixon was fearful of Ms Butterfield and that he would lie about recollecting approving this leave to avoid annoying her. Also, as the Claimant made clear in his submissions that this allegation was one of victimisation, we did not have evidence that when Mr Nixon stated that he did not recall approving the Claimant’s leave he was lying so as to subject the Claimant to a detriment for doing a protected act. Mr Nixon would have known that the Claimant would be able to produce the email in which the leave was granted so if that had been his intent, he would have known that he was unlikely to be successful in doing so. In our judgment, it is more likely that his evidence on this matter was the truth.

[673]It is our judgment that Mr Nixon did not recall approving the leave at the time that Ms Butterfield asked him about it, and this was unrelated to the Claimant’s race and his protected acts. That allegation fails and is dismissed.

[674]The third allegation which relates to this period of leave is that Ms Butterfield subjected him to less favourable treatment when she advised him to send any future annual leave requests to the OSE as well as his manager, for approval. The Claimant’s position on this in his witness statement is unclear. At one point his case was that asking him to send his leave requests to the OSE was discriminatory. Later in his witness statement, he states that asking him to send it to his manager was discriminatory. It is our judgment that neither was less favourable treatment. The Claimant had sent it to his manager and to the OSE. He had simply not sent the whole period of 7 weeks to both and that was what Ms Butterfield was pointing out to him.

[675]It is our judgment that she did not ask the Claimant to send his annual leave requests to his manager and to the OSE in future, because he had done a protected act. It was not done to make it look like the Claimant was difficult to manage. Ms Butterfield instructed him to do so because if he had put this period of 7 weeks continuous leave on one application to both his manager and the OSE, it would have flagged that the Respondent needed to assess operational strength for that period and whether for instance, there needed to be someone acting up in his position while he was away. There were operational consequences for someone in a senior position taking this much leave all at once. It was the Claimant’s entitlement to take the leave, and he would still be able to do so, but at the time this landed on Ms Butterfield’s desk the Respondent had not yet assessed the implications of him taking this leave because the approval had not triggered that assessment. It is our judgment that if the application for annual leave, rest days and paternity leave had all been on the same application, it would have triggered the assessment, which would have been done at the time.

[676]The Claimant relies on Mr Holgate as a comparator. It is our judgment that Mr Holgate’s circumstances were different so that he is not a proper comparator for this complaint. Mr Holgate applied for two months leave over the period of the birth of his child. They had both applied for a similar period of time. However, Mr Holgate’s application was all paternity leave, and it would have been evident to his line manager and the OSE at the time that this was all the leave he had applied for. There were no other bits of leave on separate applications. That is significant because when Mr Nixon approved the two bits of leave, it is our judgment that he had not appreciated that it was consecutive and that it all amounted to 7 weeks altogether. Mr Holgate’s leave was also for a period that did not include a bank or statutory holiday. Lastly, we were not told whether Ms Butterfield approved Mr Holgate’s leave or whether she was the senior officer at the time. Because of these differences, it is our judgment that Mr Holgate is not a proper comparator for this allegation. The evidence does not show that Ms Butterfield’s instruction to the Claimant was done because of his race or because he did protected acts.

[677]This allegation fails as an allegation of less favourable treatment and as an allegation of victimisation. It is dismissed.

[678]The Claimant’s complaint is that Ms Jenkins/Baker ignored the informal resolution process by telling the IRC that he had declined the EA400 role. In submissions, the Claimant said that Ms Jenkins ignored attempts to resolve the complaint by finding him another role or an alternative solution and that she did not take any action to try to resolve the dispute.

[679]The IRC was unable to speak to Mr Rolston and instead spoke to Ms Jenkins to ascertain the outcome of the 17 May LRPM. She told him what Mr Sanderson told her. It is our judgment that what she said was not inaccurate. In essence, the Claimant had turned down the role. He may well have had good reason to do so but the fact was that he had not accepted it. We take into account the fact that when the decision was made to offer him the role the LRPM meeting had no knowledge of the Claimant’s restrictions as they had not been written on his CARMs. The offer of the EA400 role had been made in good faith as a proper posting for him as an acting Inspector. It was the Claimant who raised his restrictions in the call with Mr Sanderson and Mr Sanderson did not disagree with him when he said that he could not do it due to them.

[680]Mr Sanderson repeated the offer when more EA400 postings became available, and he emailed the Claimant about it on two more occasions. These gave the Claimant the opportunity to have a think about it and accept the job and then apply for adjustments. Also, Ms Jenkins had advised him to take up the job and then let the issue of his restrictions be an issue for management to address. He chose not to do so. In another grievance dated 10 December the Claimant complained that he had only been offered roles as EA400 and duty officer which he could not do due to OH restrictions. This was him saying that he could not do it. The Respondent agreed with him but there was never an assessment by OH of the Claimant’s suitability to do the role or any notification from the BCU that it could not accommodate the Claimant in the role. Taking all that into consideration, it was not inaccurate to describe him as having refused the offer of the EA400 job.

[681]It is our judgment that Ms Jenkins had been at the 6 June meeting with Mr Bell when the Claimant and other officers of an ethnic minority background had attended and complained of discrimination. There may well have been mention in that meeting of the previous meetings with Mr Clayman. Ms Jenkins was also aware of the complaints the Claimant made against Ms Butterfield of race discrimination as by now she had told Ms Butterfield of them. She was therefore aware of some of the Claimant’s protected acts.

[682]It is our judgment that notwithstanding those facts, Ms Jenkins was simply reporting what she had been told and what she believed to be the truth when she told the ICR that the Claimant had refused the EA400 job. In doing so she was not ignoring the informal resolution process.

[683]It was not Ms Jenkins’ job to find the Claimant an acting Inspector job. The LRPM process was set up to ensure that acting up opportunities were allocated in an organised, transparent and fair fashion. This was to ensure that everyone, including officers from ethnic minorities and women had a fair opportunity to get those roles. It would not be in keeping with that for Ms Jenkins to go off and create an acting role for the Claimant, even if she had the power and the resources to do so. All roles had to go through the LRPM unless they were short-term ad hoc cover roles, and we did not hear that there were any of those at that time.

[684]It is our judgment that Ms Jenkins had not treated the Claimant less favourably because of his race when she told the IRC that he had refused the role. Also, she did not do so because he had done protected acts.

[685]The allegation of less favourable treatment at 1.28 and of victimisation fails and is dismissed. Claim 3 – allegation 6.1 – 6.6 and part of 6.7 on pages 1717 - 1718 Time

[686]The Tribunal had first to consider whether the allegations in claim three had been issued in time and whether we had jurisdiction to decide on them.

[687]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that the allegations listed at page 1717 as 6.1,6.2, 6.3, 6,4, in the list of issues all come from the third claim. Those allegations are all dated in May 2023, the allegations at 6.5 are dated 10 December 2023 and 3 January and the allegation at 6.6 is dated 3 January 2024. The first allegation at 6.7 is also dated 3 January 2024. The Claimant entered into Early Conciliation on 6 April 2024 and the certificate was issued on 25 April 2024. The ET1 was issued on 14 May 2024. Since complaints of discrimination must be brought within three months of the alleged discriminatory act or omission, it is this Tribunal’s judgment that any acts or omissions complained about that allegedly occurred before 7 January 2024 have been brought out of time. The allegations that are out of time are allegations 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6 and the first allegation at 6.7.

[688]Although the allegations at 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4 all occurred before claim two was brought on 8 July 2023, the Claimant did not include these complaints in that claim. We did not have an explanation for that.

[689]Next the Tribunal had to consider whether these allegations were part of a continuing act. The Claimant has not included in his grounds of complaint any statement that the allegations in this third claim are part of a continuing act with the second claim. The Claimant did not submit to the Tribunal that there was a continuing act here as some of the dates in the second claim postdate some of the complaints in the third.

[690]The complaints in the third claim that are in time allegedly occurred in March 2024. See allegation 6.7. Those allegations do not have the same individuals alleged to be responsible for the acts or omissions as alleged at paragraphs 6.1 – 6.6.

[691]It is our judgment that the out of time allegations are not part of a continuing act with the in time allegations.

[692]The Tribunal then considered whether it was just and equitable to extend time to enable the Tribunal to consider these complaints. The Claimant has had a solicitor on this case advising and assisting him since the second claim was issued in July 2023. The Claimant made no submissions on why time should be extended to allow him to file a late claim.

[693]The Tribunal were mindful that statutory time limits are strict and to be applied unless the Claimant can persuade the Tribunal to extend time. The burden is on the Claimant to prove grounds on which the Tribunal can consider extending time.

[694]The Claimant has failed to do so. It is therefore this Tribunal’s judgment that it does not extend time on a just and equitable basis.

[695]The Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to enable us to hear the complaint listed 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6 and the first allegation in 6.7. Those were brought to the Tribunal out of time. They are dismissed.

[696]The Tribunal will now consider whether the grievance management team failed to respond to the Claimant’s email dated 18 March 2024 as listed at allegation 6.7 on page 1718 and allegation 6.8 on the same page. Allegation 6.7, page 1718

[697]The Claimant had been in correspondence with Ms Robson of the grievance management team on 3 January 2024. He was querying the grievance management team’s decision not to continue with his grievance. At the same time, Ms Robson was dealing with some personal issues which meant that she took some compassionate and personal leave around this time.

[698]Ms Robson started corresponding with the Claimant on this and wrote to him from her personal email and then was unable to continue. She handed over some of her work, but it is likely that as she had initially responded to this query, it was not a matter that was handed over. This maybe because she wrote from her personal email. As the Claimant submitted, the reason why she failed to respond to the Claimant’s further email dated 3 January was Ms Robson taking compassionate leave. It was not because the Claimant was an Asian man and was also not because the Claimant had done protected acts.

[699]It is our judgment that Ms Robson was not aware of the Claimant’s protected acts although she was aware of the ET claim. She did not know of the meetings with Mr Clayman and Mr Bell. She knew that the Claimant had submitted a grievance and complained of discrimination in it.

[700]The question for the Tribunal was not whether Ms Robson could have responded to the email dated 18 March 2024 or whether she could have forwarded it to her colleague with whom she was having a handover; but whether her failure to do these things as the Claimant would have liked her to, was an act of less favourable treatment or an act of victimisation.

[701]Ms Robson was having a difficult time in her personal life over Christmas 2023 and New Year, January 2024. By March 2024 Ms Robson was not yet back at work and was now on compassionate leave. The grievance management team were busy, and it is likely that they were slow in responding to communication in writing. When she returned to work on 3 April, her colleague agreed to respond to the Claimant’s email and did so.

[702]It is our judgment that the Respondent’s failure to respond to the Claimant’s emails of 3 January and 18 March 2024 were because of Ms Robson’s absence from work, the fact that this matter had not been handed over and the team had been too busy to pick up that they needed to respond to the second email which had been sent to the team inbox.

[703]It is our judgment that the evidence does not point to less favourable treatment because of race. This was also not a detriment to the Claimant because he did

[704]The allegation fails and is dismissed. Allegation 6.8 on page 1718

[705]It is our judgment that Mr O’Donnell decided not to open a misconduct investigation into the Claimant’s complaint that on 9 May 2023, Ms Jenkins had breached confidentiality by speaking to Ms Butterfield. The Claimant also complained that Ms Butterfield had victimised him. Mr O’Donnell’s decision was the final assessment of the confidentiality complaint as he decided that there was no indication that the SOPB had been breached or that there had been a criminal offence. From the Claimant’s submissions, this complaint is about Mr O’Donnell’s actions.

[706]Mr O’Donnell was not part of the EA BCU, but he was part of the DPS. It is our judgment that he would have been aware of the Claimant’s employment tribunal complaint as it was referred to in the complaint form. He would also have been aware of the grievance and the complaint as he was considering the complaint of a breach of confidentiality. He was therefore aware of some of the Claimant’s protected acts. He knew that the Claimant had complained that Ms Butterfield had victimised him but, as he explained - and we accepted his explanation - that he mistakenly thought that part of the complaint was being dealt with elsewhere.

[707]The Claimant relied on the case of Sarah Wolfe to show that the difference in treatment was because of or mainly because of his race. What aspect of Sarah Wolfe’s case are we looking at? The question here for the Tribunal is whether in deciding not to open an investigation into the Claimant’s complaint of victimisation against Ms Butterfield or in making a decision that there was no misconduct indicated in the complaint of a breach of confidentiality by Ms Jenkins; Mr O’Donnell was treating the Claimant less favourably because of his race or treating him to his detriment because he had done protected acts; whether consciously or unconsciously.

[708]In Ms Wolfe’s case we found that Ms Jenkins did speak to Mr Asghar before she put Ms Wolfe’s complaints in an MM1 and submitted it for further investigation. The DPS report recorded that they had an early and detailed response from Mr Asghar. As we were not investigating Mr Asghar’s case, we do not know at what stage he provided that response, but it was clear that he had clearly had an opportunity to comment on the complaints before the DPS came to consider them. We also bear in mind that Mr O’Donnell was not involved in assessing Ms Wolfe’s complaints.

[709]There were no other cases that we were aware that had been referred to Mr O’Donnell, which we could consider as a comparator. The other cases we heard about related to the institution of restrictions on officers because of the allegations made against them. In those cases, the person who was the subject of the complaint was told about the complaint when the restrictions were imposed but before the investigation commenced. We made findings above on the case of Mr Walker who was told about complaints by Ms Malcolm when restrictions were imposed on him, and Ms DeFreitas who was told about complaints about her conduct when restrictions were imposed on her.

[710]In considering whether the Claimant has proved facts from which we could infer less favourable treatment because of his race, we also considered the process of submitting a complaint for investigation. The MM1 form requires that the person being complained about is spoken to and their responses recorded on the form. It is then presented to the DPS.

[711]As we did not have a real comparator for this complaint, we considered how a hypothetical comparator would have been treated. It is this Tribunal’s judgment that if a white male police officer had complained that the person he complained about had been spoken to about his complaint before it was submitted to the DPS, it is likely that Mr O’Donnell would have treated it in the same way as he did the Claimant’s complaint.

[712]As far as the complaint against Ms Butterfield is concerned, it is this Tribunal’s judgment that, Mr O’Donnell honestly held a mistaken belief that the complaint against her was being considered elsewhere so that he did not need to consider it.

[713]The 5020A form referred to this as the subject of the grievance against Ms Butterfield and at the time his understanding was that it would be assessed as part of the grievance. As the Respondent’s procedure did not allow him to ask questions or to investigate further before coming to a conclusion, he did not have an opportunity to check out his belief. He missed the emails in the documents that were sent to him, which would have told him that the grievance had been assessed as not being suitable for consideration.

[714]It is our judgment that Mr O’Donnell believed that on balance, Ms Jenkins had not committed misconduct because Ms Butterfield would have to be told about the complaint before it could be investigated and that was what she had done. We found it unlikely that Ms Jenkins had completed a form on 9 May, but we were not shown any policy or procedure that it had to be done at the same time that the officer is spoken to. He did not examine that level of detail.

[715]The Claimant referred to what Ms Butterfield said about him in the statement to Ms Cormack but apart from that, he did not set out what he considered to be Ms Butterfield’s acts of victimisation against him. The alleged acts of victimisation relied on this case, that were alleged to have happened after 9 May, such as allegations 1.25 and 1.27 were not referred to in the form 5020A. The Claimant referred to Ms Butterfield telephoning Ms Sher to ask her where she wanted to be posted after she was successful in her application to be an acting Inspector. The Claimant did not receive a phone call from her, but he was still offered a posting, which we found above was not a detriment or less favourable treatment. There was no actual allegation of victimisation for Mr O’Donnell to investigate.

[716]In the circumstances, we do not find that the burden of proof shifted to the Respondent to prove a cogent, non-discriminatory reason for Mr O’Donnell’s decision that there was no indication of misconduct by Ms Jenkins’ action in telling Ms Butterfield about the Claimant’s grievance on 9 May. Also, we do not find that the burden of proof shifts to the Respondent to prove a cogent, non-discriminatory reason for Mr O’Donnell’s failure to investigate/assess the Claimant’s complaint of victimisation by Ms Butterfield.

[717]If the burden did shift, it is our judgment that the Respondent has proven that Mr O’Donnell’s assessment was that Ms Butterfield would have had to be told about the complaint as part of the process of preparing the complaint for investigation. There was generally no facility for the Respondent to investigate a complaint without the officer subject to that complaint being informed about it. As part of the initial fact find involved in completing an MM1, the officer would be spoken to and their reaction recorded. That is what happened with Mr Asghar and that is what happened with Ms Butterfield. Even though Ms Jenkins may not have completed the form at that moment, and she did not record accurately what Ms Butterfield said when told about the complaint, it was not an act of less favourable treatment for Mr O’Donnell to conclude that there was no indication that Ms Jenkins had breached the SOPB to the extent that she should be subject to misconduct proceedings.

[718]Ms Butterfield was not subject to criminal prosecution and therefore this situation was not like Mr Hannan’s. It was therefore open to Mr O’Donnell to conclude that Ms Jenkins had not committed an act of misconduct by telling her about the Claimant’s complaint.

[719]As far as the victimisation complaint was concerned, Mr O’Donnell believed that it was being considered elsewhere and that was why he did not look into it. That was not true, but it is our judgment that he made a genuine error in failing to realise that. Also, the Claimant had not specified any acts of victimisation for him to investigate.

[720]Although Mr O’Donnell was aware of the Claimant’s protected acts, there was no facts apart from that awareness that would lead us to infer that his decisions on the allegations against Ms Jenkins and Ms Butterfield were taken because of any of those

[721]It is our judgment that this complaint fails as an allegation of less favourable treatment and as an allegation of victimisation.

[722]The complaint fails and is dismissed.

[723]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that all the Claimant’s discrimination complaints fail and are dismissed. Approved by:

The list of issues

[1]The claimant’s application dated 12 November 2025 for reconsideration of the judgment sent to the parties on 3 November 2023 is refused. The judgment is confirmed.

The list of issues

[1]There is no reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked, because: 1.1 On 12 November 2023, the Claimant applied for reconsideration under Rule 70 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure 2024 of the liability judgment sent to the parties on 3 November 2025. The application was sent to the Judge and members for our consideration on 20 November 2025. The Tribunal has read all the points and considered the grounds for reconsideration set out by the Claimant and concluded that it is not necessary to reconsider its judgment in the interest of justice.

[2]It is this Tribunal’s judgment that the application has no reasonable prospects of success. The Tribunal has come to the conclusions that were open to it from the evidence, both oral and documentary, in the hearing. The Tribunal has explained at length its assessment of the evidence and its conclusions.

[3]The Claimant takes issue with the Tribunal’s conclusions on some issues which were held to have been issued out of time; the Claimant’s complaints have not been struck out. The Tribunal confirms its decision that these complaints were Case Numbers: 3200501/2023, 3201242/2023 and 3201264/2024 issued out of time and that it was not just and equitable to extend time to consider them.

[4]The Claimant also complains that we did not make specific findings of fact in relation to each of the comparators he referred to in his witness statement. The Tribunal assessed all the evidence in this case, including all the evidence relating to the comparators. We were unable to make findings of fact where we had little or no facts, apart from the Claimant mentioning a name. We took considerable time to assess all the evidence and to make findings on all evidence that was relevant to the issues in this case.

[5]The Tribunal applied the burden of proof properly and in accordance with the law. In coming to factual conclusions in this case we considered all the evidence, which included oral evidence from the Claimant and the Respondent’s witnesses.

[6]There is nothing in the Claimant’s application for reconsideration that challenges the Tribunal’s judgment on the issues in this matter. It is this Tribunal’s judgment that none of the matters raised by the Claimant are such that they would give any reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked.

[7]The Claimant’s application for reconsideration of the liability judgment dated 3 November 2025 is refused for the reasons stated above under the Employment Tribunals Rules 2024. The judgment promulgated to the parties on 3 November 2025 is confirmed.