Specific things to consider in your direct age discrimination claim

Written by Danae Shell | Jul 24, 2025 2:47:48 PM

Laying out your claim

When you are claiming direct age discrimination at Tribunal, you want to clearly argue that you have been treated unfairly because of age. This is usually because of your own age, but it could also be the age you are perceived to be, or because of the age of someone you’re with or connected to. For example:

An employer believes that someone’s memory deteriorates with age. He assumes – wrongly – that a 60-year-old manager in his team can no longer be relied on to undertake her role competently. An opportunity for promotion arises, which he does not mention to the manager.
A marketing company places an advert on its web site offering jobs to “young graduates”.
The manager of a nightclub is disciplined for refusing to carry out an instruction to exclude older customers from the club.

With direct age discrimination, it’s important to know that sometimes direct age discrimination is lawful if it can be justified, for example if there are strong business reasons for the practice.

Also, with direct age discrimination, your employer can be liable for the acts of its employees, as well as the employees being personally responsible.

Proving your claim

You don’t need to attach evidence to a Tribunal ET1 claim, but it’s a good idea to back up your claims by mentioning the evidence you intend to use. For direct race discrimination claims, people typically refer to evidence such as text messages, emails, letters, meeting notes and witness evidence.

What you can ask for in your direct age discrimination claim

If you’re successful in a Tribunal claim, you will be awarded a “remedy”. This mainly includes financial compensation, like loss of earnings. It can also include some non-financial remedies too.

Common remedies people ask for at Tribunal

Some of the key remedies you can ask for at Tribunal are:

The money you have lost from being out of work, or working in a lower-paid job.
The money that you expect to lose in the future from being out of work, or working in a lower-paid job.
Wages that you are owed, including holiday pay and notice pay.

Discrimination-specific remedies

As well as the common remedies that you can ask for, discrimination-specific claims also have the option to include an “injury to feelings” remedy. This is compensation which you can be awarded when you have been hurt or distressed because you have been discriminated against.

Injury to feelings is generally awarded within one of three “Vento bands” depending on severity.

For example, Carla was awarded £42,809.32 plus interest for injury to feelings after she was subjected to numerous different acts of age and race discrimination. This included direct age discrimination when she was humiliated after a colleague made 2 nasty comments related to her age in front of other colleagues. She also made complaints of sex discrimination, which were not successful.

Real direct age discrimination cases you can learn from

Summary: a company ended a 16-year-old’s apprenticeship contract, stating that he “had a lot of maturing up to do”.

Total award: £7,908

Outcome: He was successful in a claim for direct age discrimination. As well as this he also successfully made a claim for breach of contract.

Summary: a print room manager made various claims, including direct age discrimination. There were a number of facts which indicated discrimination, including his employer having written him a letter that said he was "finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of change" and suggested he should have remedial management training at the most basic level.

Total award: £60,914.24

Outcome: the print room manager was successful in his claim for direct age discrimination, as well as claims for unfair dismissal and unlawful deduction from wages.