Time off refusal "was race victimisation"

An employee who was refused the right to take a short amount of time off work to meet with an advisor from the Racial Advisory Council, over

a complaint he had made about discrimination at work, was unlawfully victimised, according to the Court of Appeal.

The claim, taken by TNT Express Worldwide employee Victor Brown, was a test case on the working of the law on victimisation. The employers argued that he had not been victimised because they would not normally give employees leave of absence at short notice to seek advice in a claim against the company. The Court of Appeal ruling, given by Lord Justice Peter Gibson, makes it clear that the employer had not made a correct comparison. It was noted that the employer did give employees the right to time off at short notice for domestic reasons without too much enquiry into this and it was their treatment that had to be compared with that given to Mr Brown. The point at issue was to look at why Brown's request had been turned down. It was clear that the reason was due to the fact that he was pursuing a race discrimination claim. This meant that the action taken against him did amount to victimisation for reasons of race discrimination.