The claimant renewed her application for leave to appeal. She had been a probationary constable, but after various injuries came to suffer disability, preventing her being able to carry out the routine activities of as constable, and her employment had been terminated. The tribunal, having found her to be disabled, found also that the discrimination was in the particular circumstances justified under 3A(3), dismissing her suggestion that appropriate adjustments should have been made. The Tribunal found that having been unable to demonstrate the basic competencies of a police constable during her training she fell within the respondent force’s policy not to recruit those who could not meet those competencies, and that it would have been unreasonable to have expected the Force to waive its basic requirement.
Held: The application failed. Though the court had sympathy for the claimant, both the tribunal and EAT had been entitled to draw the distinction they had between a probationary officer and an officer who had served the probationary period and qualified as a police constable. The distinction came from the Regulations under which the respondent worked, and ‘one does not really get to section 18B despite the mandatory language of the section if the position is as I have indicated, namely that the chief constable was entitled (and was therefore justified) not to lower the standard in relation to probationary training.’ and ‘the Tribunal did not err in law when it held that the requirements of the regulations which necessitated training and experience in confrontational situations were what it described as an ‘irreducible minimum’ in the training of police constables and it was not therefore open to the respondent to make an adjustment which would have the effect of waiving the strict requirement under the regulations that an individual must be fit physically and mentally to perform the duties of a police constable.’
Judges:
Wall LJ
Citations:
[2008] EWCA Civ 929
Links:
Statutes:
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 3A(3) 18B(1), Police Regulations 2003 12 13
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Hart v Chief Constable of Derbyshire Constabulary EAT 6-Dec-2007
EAT Disability discrimination – Reasonable adjustments
The Tribunal found that the Chief Constable was entitled to terminate the services of a probationary constable who could not successfully complete her . .
Cited – Archibald v Fife Council HL 1-Jul-2004
The claimant was employed as a street sweeper. She suffered injury to her health making it difficult to do her work. She was dismissed, and claimed that being disabled, the employer had not made reasonable adjustments to find alternative work for . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment, Discrimination, Police
Updated: 18 July 2022; Ref: scu.272229