Race discrimination

Case 13: The facts

Police officer Soy Ismail alleged that he had suffered a racial assault by his superior officer. The police carried out an investigation and concluded that there had been some misconduct by the sergeant, namely asking Ismail to make tea and admonishing him in public, but that no disciplinary action against him was required. They found no evidence that the racial element of the charge could be sustained.

Ismail believed that the investigation itself had been flawed, and that the way it had been carried out amounted to race discrimination. A tribunal rejected his claims.

The ruling

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that the tribunal had been entitled to dismiss the claims. The tribunal had said the case came down to the credibility of the witnesses; it had also found “powerful reasons” for disbelieving Ismail’s account, given that he had lied about an incident that had occurred earlier that day, and that closed-circuit television evidence showed him to have grossly exaggerated the incident.

The tribunal had properly considered whether there had been less favourable treatment, the EAT said; although it had said some of the police investigation was “sloppy”, it had concluded that someone of a different racial group who had “exaggerated, manufactured and manipulated the evidence” could have expected to have been treated in the same way.

Ismail v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis EAT/0193/06