Pregnancy discrimination

Case 10: The facts

Portuguese worker Miss Silveira was recruited by Seek Personnel recruitment agency to work in the UK. When she arrived in the UK, she completed agency forms on which she indicated that she was pregnant.

The employer for whom she had been recruited told the agency that a risk assessment would need to be carried out before she could be taken on, but the agency failed to do so.

Silveira successfully claimed sex discrimination, and the two owner-directors of the agency were ordered to pay compensation of around £800 and £250 respectively.

The ruling

The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the tribunal’s ruling, confirming that the failure to carry out a risk assessment amounted to sex discrimination.

Under section 15 of the SDA, it is unlawful for an agency to discriminate against a woman by refusing or deliberately omitting to provide any of its services. The tribunal had been entitled to find that the failure to carry out a risk assessment was a deliberate omission, and no grounds had been put forward that could challenge this on appeal.

Brocklebank v Silveira UKEAT/0571/05