United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MISS S. BELGRAVE (of Counsel) Hounslow Law Centre Limited 51 Lampton Road Hounslow, Middlesex TW3 1JG
For the Respondent	MR J COPPEL (of Counsel) Solicitor to the Commissioner Metropolitan Police Service New Scotland Yard London SW1 OBG


 


THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): This is an appeal against the decision of an Industrial Tribunal effectively to stay the Applicant's complaint until after 1 February. The case arises in this way - the Applicant is a Police Officer. He has presented to the Tribunal a complaint that effectively throughout his relatively long police service, he, as a person of Asian ethnic origin and black, has been discriminated against on the grounds of race. Those proceedings were commenced by an Originating Application which was presented to the Industrial Tribunal on or about 26 June 1998.

The Application is in fairly detailed form and contains within it a contention that at the early stages of his career, he suffered racial abuse from fellow officers at Battersea Police Station where racist literature was put among his working papers and then in December 1997, he complains that he was sent in the internal mail, messages of an offensive nature along the lines of "not wanted - keep the police service white" and similar messages were received by other employees of a non-white ethnic origin at Ealing Police Station at the time.

In January of 1998, it is contended that employees of the civil police service, of non-white ethnic origin, received similar messages. Paragraph 15 of the complaint reads:

"On 15 April 1998 the Applicant was due to return to work following a period of annual leave. When driving his car, he noticed he was being followed a Police surveillance team. The Applicant made a telephone call to the Chief Superintendent to inform him of the surveillance but the Applicant was informed that he was worried for no reason and be was being "paranoid". The Applicant spoke to the surveillance team to discover the purpose of their activities. He was then arrested for distributing racist material and perverting the course of justice."

As I understand the IT1, it is his contention that the activities described in paragraph 15 were part of a campaign against him by reason of his ethnic origin.

Following his arrest on 15 April 1998, he has been interviewed by the Police on or about 6 October 1998 and the Crown Prosecution Service having reviewed the file on 16 December of this year. The Industrial Tribunal decision against which there is an appeal, stems from a hearing on 11 September 1998. The Police Respondent had applied for a stay of the proceedings which was opposed by the Applicant. The learned Chairman, having considered the facts with care, and requests for particulars and discovery, came to the conclusion that the case should be stayed until 1 February 1999. The reason why that date was chosen was as I understand it, because it was the Respondent Police Force's contention that by that date a decision would have been made as to whether Mr Virdi, the Applicant, would be charged with any criminal offence following the enquiries which the Police have been making culminating in the arrest in April.

The Appellant says that effectively we are dealing with a case where a man is alleging serious race discrimination against one of our uniformed services, that the public interest is strongly in favour of having those proceedings heard and determined at the first available moment. Allegations of race discrimination are indeed serious matters which must be dealt with as promptly as possible. It was also submitted to us that the peculiarity of this case is that because the Police are the Respondents to the Application and are in control of the prosecution, they are effectively able by making the Application to the Industrial Tribunal, to control the speed at which the criminal proceedings go on and now the civil proceedings as well. It has been pointed out by Miss Belgrave on his behalf, that it appear that there has been some considerable delay between the date of the arrest and a decision to make a charge or not make a charge, and she says that it is somewhat surprising that it has taken so long.

We have come to the conclusion that the learned Chairman obviously had a discretion whether to grant the Application for a stay or not. We are not persuaded that it can be said that he has misdirected himself or has arrived at a conclusion which is perverse in granting the stay until 1 February 1999. In paragraph 12 of the decision it was said no specific date was fixed for any future directions hearing, the parties were instructed that they should keep the Tribunal advised as to the progress of the criminal proceedings. If the Respondents wish to seek a further stay of the proceedings in the light of any decision to commence criminal proceedings, a further directions hearing would be held. We would respectively invite the Industrial Tribunal now, bearing in mind the need for these sort of cases to be heard and determined as soon as practicable, to set aside the first available date after 1 February for a directions hearing. Such a hearing will be required, either to progress the case to finality or alternatively to consider any further application for a stay if such were made. We cannot indicate to the Industrial Tribunal how any further Application for a stay should be viewed.

The Tribunal will wish to give careful consideration to the public interest in having the civil proceedings heard and determined and weighing that against the need not to interfere with any criminal proceedings. Miss Belgrave submitted to us that there are examples in the authorities as to how the two sets of proceedings can be accommodated together, but we wish to give no indication at this time as to how the discretion should be exercised. Accordingly, we dismiss the appeal but respectively request that this judgment be given to the Employment Tribunal's Chairman so that a hearing date can be fixed for a directions hearing in this case on the first available date after 1 February of next year.