Continuing discrimination

Case 13: The facts

Mrs Ilori brought race discrimination claims against her local authority employer. One of the claims was that there was a continuous failure to promote her over a period of around two years before she obtained a post of trainee budget support officer. The second concerned how the the performance capability procedure (PCP), implemented about a year later, was applied in her case. The issue on appeal was whether Ilori’s claims were in time, which meant she had to show that the two complaints were part of a continuing act of discrimination.

The ruling

The EAT held that the two periods of discrimination were entirely separate. The whole of the second period was about the use of the PCP. This was not a continuing series of acts. It rejected her argument that there was a single overarching complaint that her lack of career advancement was on the ground of her race and because she had complained about it.

The complaints fell into two separate types and were a year apart; the complaints were against different people. They were not the same and therefore Ilori could not bring a claim in relation to the first series of events because the claim was out of time.