I was pleased to learn that Riam Dean, the law student who sued Abercrombie & Fitch for wrongful dismissal and unlawful harassment (because of her disability) won her case at the London Central Employment Tribunal. According to The Independent today, she was awarded £7,800 compensation for injury to feelings, £1,077.37 for loss of earnings and £136.75 damages for being wrongfully dismissed. It is reported that she did not succeed with her claim for “direct” disability discrimination which the ET thought was “not well founded”. I would be interested to read the law report on this case, if it ever gets published, for the reasoning behind the decision. I’ve posted before on the case (click here).
It’s always good to see the style police take a battering.
Related posts:
[...] employees are now able to work from home and work from several locations during the working week. Riam wins – michaelscutt.co.uk 08/14/2009 I was pleased to learn that Riam Dean, the law student who [...]
I too am pleased for Riam for her successful compensation claim, but I wonder what it takes to prove “direct” disability discrimination if this case can’t? To me this result epitomises how flawed the DDA is and how it fails to defend disabled people’s civil rights, with weighting in favour of employer’s and providers interests.
I also wonder if there was reference to Malcom as part of the ET deliberations. The EHRC have published a response to the problems Malcom caused here:
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/legislative-framework/legal-updates/recent-developments-in-disability-discrimination-cases/the-malcolm-case/