Resources

A gay employee worked in a Land Registry office where he was ‘out’. He moved to another office where he decided to delay revealing his homosexuality. His new manager mentioned his sexuality to another colleague, as well as making references to it at a dinner party. The employee brought sexual orientation and harassment claims.

Mrs Hawkins started working at the Atex Group in early 2010. She was dismissed before she had worked for Atex Group for a year as her employment was in breach of an instruction to her husband, who was Chief Executive at Atex Group at the time. Mrs Hawkins was therefore unable to claim unfair dismissal under s.94(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

This precedent-setting case about admission to a public swimming pool has had a massive impact on how all discrimination cases in employment are argued. It set the ‘test’ for deciding whether, or not, direct discrimination has taken place in a case.

The introduction of civil partnerships in December 2005 was a landmark for LGBT rights in the UK. However, civil partnerships caused an immediate clash in the employment sphere when some individuals with a strong Christian belief in the sanctity of marriage refused to carry out civil partnership duties.