An NHS trust embroiled in a claim of racial harassment took ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent a black employee from being racially abused, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled.

John Campbell worked for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and was also a full-time trade union branch secretary for Unison. Wesley Hammond worked for the trust and decided he wanted to leave the union.

Hammond had spoken to HR about membership subscriptions and was told he needed to speak to the union directly. He spoke to Campbell, asking if the deductions could be refunded and was told this would not be possible.

The tribunal heard that at a second meeting, Hammond became angry and repeatedly called Campbell a “f**king muppet”, and then began calling him a “f**king monkey”.

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Campbell is black and Hammond is white, meaning the remark was “capable of amounting to racist abuse”, the tribunal heard.

The first judgment, in October 2022, concluded that the comment had not been made “in the course of employment”, even though it had been made on the trust’s premises during working hours, so the employer could not be held liable.

The initial tribunal also argued that Hammond and the trust had taken all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment from occurring, citing a number of initiatives run by the trust.

These included an induction session on dignity at work which introduced the Trust’s ‘Proud’ core values, an annual performance assessment which reinforced these values, ‘Proud’ posters displayed in the workplace and mandatory training every three years on equality, diversity and inclusion issues – recently completed by Hammond.

Campbell appealed the decision firstly on the grounds that the conversation had taken place at work and that there was a natural link between union membership and the workplace; and secondly that the trust did not take further steps than those cited to prevent the situation from happening.

Lord Fairley, president of the EAT, was not persuaded of either grounds for appeal and the case was dismissed.

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