Power v Greater Manchester Police
Employees are protected against discrimination at work on the grounds of their religion or beliefs. However, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decided in Power v Greater Manchester Police that there was a difference between how someone was treated on the grounds of their beliefs as opposed to how they manifested those beliefs.
Basic facts
Mr Power started work for Greater Manchester police as a special constable in October 2008. Shortly afterwards, his employers received reports about his behaviour and attitude at two different training days, which were said to be disruptive and unhelpful.
During the course of an investigation, it transpired that, prior to joining Greater Manchester, he had provided “inappropriate material” to do with his spiritualist beliefs to other police forces in neighbouring areas.
Greater Manchester said this was incompatible with his employment and dismissed him because of his “current work in the psychic field”. He claimed direct religious discrimination.
Tribunal decision
A majority of the tribunal agreed that, on the face of it, Mr Power had been discriminated against under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 (now part of the 2010 Equality Act).
However, it agreed with Greater Manchester that he had not been dismissed because he held certain protected beliefs, but because of the unacceptable way he had behaved prior to joining the force.
This indicated he was unsuited to training young police officers; and the material he had provided, although related to his beliefs, was an unacceptable way of expressing them.
EAT decision
And the EAT agreed. It said that the tribunal was correct to draw a distinction “between treatment on the grounds of a person's beliefs and on the grounds of the manifestation of those beliefs”.
This was in line with previous decisions in Chondol v Liverpool City Council (weekly LELR 109), Islington London Borough Council v Ladele (weekly LELR 154) and McFarlane v Relate (weekly LELR 170).
It concluded that “Having correctly directed themselves as to that distinction in law the Tribunal majority, in our collective judgment, permissibly found that the reason for the Respondent's dismissal of the Claimant was, in part, the manifestation of his spiritualist beliefs in the material which he had earlier distributed, not the fact of his beliefs”.