A black security manager who was called a “slave” and left his job due to “continuous bullying” has been awarded £361,000, an employment tribunal has heard.
Richard Assan started his career with Vigilant Security in 2007 and was promoted to security manager in May 2018.
The company had a “striking imbalance” between racial profiles as a large number of guards and team leaders were from minority ethnic groups while the managers were mainly white, the tribunal in London heard.
Assan resigned on 6 April 2022, making a case that he had been the victim of “continuous bullying and racism dating back to 2011”, the tribunal heard.
During his more than 15 years of continuous service, Assan, who is of African descent, raised a number of claims of racial discrimination. In one incident from June 2011, Bill Cowle, a white chief engineer, had referred to Assan as his “slave” in a remark that was “apparently intended to be humorous”, the tribunal heard.
Judge Snelson found the comment caused Assan “clear detriment” and involved “evidently race-based conduct”.
In another incident from July 2012, Guy Rampe, a manager, asked Assan a “thoughtless” question about where he had learned his English, which the claimant regarded as offensive, the tribunal heard.
The judge wrote that Assan’s treatment was “found plainly” as a result of his race, adding that while it was “possible that Mr Rampe would have addressed an equally insensitive question to an imaginary comparator of the claimant’s (say a white Caucasian born and brought up in eastern Europe)”, there was no evidence to support that idea.
He added: “In our judgment his overtly race-based treatment of the claimant is more than sufficient to shift the burden to the respondent to disprove discrimination. That burden is not discharged.”
The tribunal also heard Assan had applied for a promotion in April 2016 but his application had not been acknowledged. The judge said: “The gross racial imbalance within the managerial cohort lends support to the claimant’s perception of a culture in which it is an accepted norm that visible ethnic minority staff populate the lower orders of the organisation and management is confined to white men.
“In our view, the claimant has done enough to transfer the burden of proof to the respondent. That being so, our finding is inevitable. For want of any evidence to disprove discrimination, we find that the claimant’s race was, at the very least, a material factor in the failure to engage with and process his promotion application.”
Assan raised the issue of racial discrimination shortly after he resigned, but though the tribunal accepted that Assan had experienced several “race-based incidents” during his time at Vigilant Security, it ultimately did not uphold his claims of direct race discrimination.
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Explaining his reasoning, the judge noted that these events could not be seen as a continuous and linked pattern that could legally constitute ongoing discriminatory conduct under the Equality Act 2010. The judge wrote: “The intervals are very substantial. The actors are different. And there is little or nothing qualitatively to link the conduct complained of in the four cases.”
On Assan’s resignation, the judge ruled: “We are satisfied to a high standard that the treatment which caused the claimant to resign amounted to a series of acts of victimisation.”
The judgment also noted that Assan had been born into poverty and was “rightly proud of having overcome enormous odds in building his career”. However, the judge also found that Assan had an “acute sensitivity to criticism” and a mindset that “treats any critical comment as unfair”.
Assan succeeded in his claims for victimisation and unfair (constructive) dismissal. The £361,000 figure also includes compensation for injury to feelings and personal injury.