Detriments

[Thank to Louise Jones of 1 Temple Gardens for writing this summary]

The EAT has again considered the meaning of 'detriment' in Bayode v Chief Constable of Derbyshire. The Appellant police officer appealed to the EAT on whether the mere act of a written record being made, where there was no inappropriate action, could be a detriment in the context of race discrimination; the material complaint was one of victimisation by colleagues.

Colleagues had recorded details of an incident in their Pocket Note Books, before passing the comments onto more senior colleagues; the Appellant had not known of these written comments until disclosure in the employment tribunal proceedings.

At first instance, the tribunal inferred that these comments were recorded because the authors thought the Appellant might make allegations of race discrimination, and they wished to have a record of what had been said.

The Appellant argued that the tribunal had failed to consider the detriment arising from the recording of the comments. It was submitted that the effect of the entries on the Appellant should have been considered, and this effect constituted a detriment. The EAT rejected this submission; the wide definition of detriment was considered, but the EAT still concluded that the tribunal had made no error in concluding that the making and content of the notebook entries did not amount to a detriment.