Worthingtons
Solicitors represented the claimant, Mr Gordon Downey, against the Police
Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in relation to the
successful pursuit of a sex discrimination complaint, the decision of which was
handed down by the Industrial Tribunal on Friday 4th October 2019.
The tribunal determined the claimant was discriminated against, both directly
and indirectly, in relation to the application and enforcement of a policy.
The issue arose in
January 2018 when the PSNI introduced a version of a policy which sought to
identify minimum standard requirements when it came to uniform and personal
appearance, together with identifying safety equipment, to include safety masks.
Part of this policy stated “some police officers / police staff occupy roles
where there is a routine possibility of respiratory exposure to occupational hazards.
These officers/staff members may be required to wear Respiratory Protective Equipment
(RPE) at short notice and must therefore always remain clean shaven whilst on
duty.”
In February 2018,
when the claimant had stated to his employer that he would not be removing his
moustache on the basis that he believed such a request from his employer to be
discriminatory, the PSNI, with little notice, transferred the claimant from his
local Armed Response Unit (ARU) to a Road Trafficking Unit, suspended him from
firearm use and requested that he shave off his moustache if he wished to
return to the ARU. The claimant contended that this was a discriminatory act, given
the fact there were female officers at that time who were non-compliant with
the policy in so far as those females did not wear their hair above shoulder
length, which presented a grab risk. The tribunal believed this to be direct sex
discrimination, accepting the two female officers as adequate comparators.
Furthermore, and
significantly, the tribunal determined that the application of the Corporate
Appearance and Protective Equipment Standard (CAPES) Policy was indirectly
discriminatory, as the PSNI were incapable of justifying the policy on Health
and Safety grounds. The tribunal were not satisfied that the PSNI considered other
alternative measures when the PSNI ordered that police officers were to be entirely
clean shaven for the safety masks to be effective. The tribunal, in reaching this
decision, determined that at the time the policy was introduced, the ARU unit
would have been incapable of being deployed as their officers had not been
tactically/operationally trained in the use of the safety masks, that the
canisters attached to the masks had expired and the Equality Impact Assessment
had been undertaken some five months after the introduction of the policy. The tribunal
held this simply was not good enough.
The claimant in this case received an award of £10,000.00 for injury to feelings and the tribunal also recommended that the PSNI review the operation and wording of the relevant section of the impugned policy.
