United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	The Appellant in Person


 


RECORDER SLADE QC

1. This is the preliminary hearing of an appeal by Mrs Onafowokan against a decision of an Employment Tribunal sitting at Ashford entered in the register on 17 June 1999 whereby the Tribunal held that Mrs Onafowokan had not been discriminated against on grounds of her race or sex.
2. The Tribunal sat over 3 days hearing this case. At that hearing Mrs Onafowokan was represented by Counsel and the Respondent by a solicitor.
3. There was an earlier preliminary hearing in this matter before Wilkie HHJ on 19 November 1999 when Mrs Onafowokan failed to appear. Wilkie HHJ dismissed the appeal but gave liberty to set aside his judgment provided that evidence was supplied within 7 days as to the reason for Mrs Onafowokan's non appearance. That medical evidence was provided and the matter came before the President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, Mr Justice Lindsay on 12 April 2000. The judgment of the 19 November was set aside.
4. Mrs Onafowokan's grounds of appeal are set out in a Notice of Appeal dated 23 July 1999. She also sent in two letters dated 26 July and 27 August 2000. She had supplied a document headed Skeleton Argument for the hearing before Mr Justice Lindsay on 12 April which sets out a number of matters to be considered. The Notice of Appeal asserts error of law, which is not specified, and perversity.
5. Mrs Onafowokan was a Customer Services Assistant she was employed by BP Express Shopping from 17 November 1997 to 26 November 1998.
6. Mrs Onafowokan lodged her Tribunal application on 2 December 1998. She makes various complaints of race discrimination, which were particularised in great detail. The Tribunal reached a decision in her case after a 3 day hearing. The Tribunal dismissed the complaint of sex discrimination, no particulars whatsoever having been supplied. As for Mrs Onafowokan's complaint of race discrimination is concerned the Tribunal carefully summarised the various heads of her complaint and set out the facts and the law applicable to it. We can find no fault with the approach to the applicable law adopted by the Tribunal.
7. The Tribunal first considered whether Mrs Onafowokan's complaints of race discrimination were made in time. Certain of her complaints were apparantly out of time. The Tribunal considered that those complaints were acts extending over a period ending within the 3 month periods immediately preceding the presentation of the complaint and they held that those complaints were in time. Some other complaints of difference in treatment regarding uniforms, discipline, salary, hours and overtime, related to events 3 months before the presentation of the originating application to the Employment Tribunal. However the Tribunal held that it was just and equitable that those complaints should be heard.
8. The Tribunal then considered very carefully the different heads of complaint and they considered in each case whether there was a difference in treatment. Where there was a difference in treatment they considered the reasons for that difference in treatment. They had evidence before them on all of those issues and they concluded on the basis of that evidence that there were no racial grounds for the difference in treatment and no victimisation.
9. We have listened carefully to what Mrs Onafowokan has said to us. We have considered carefully the Decision of the Employment Tribunal. We consider that this appeal raises no reasonably arguable point of law or point of perversity. Accordingly we dismiss this appeal.