Specific things to consider in your racial victimisation claim

Written by Danae Shell | Apr 9, 2025 12:00:00 PM

Laying out your claim

When you are claiming racial victimisation at Tribunal, you want to clearly argue that you have been treated badly because you have made a complaint about race discrimination, or have helped a colleague make a complaint about race discrimination. For example:

An employee makes a complaint of race discrimination against their employer. As a result, they are denied promotion.
A GP instructs their receptionist not to register anyone with an Asian name. The receptionist would have a claim against the GP if they experienced a detriment as a result of not following the instruction.
A senior manager upholds a worker’s grievance about racial harassment. As a result, they are not put forward by their director to attend an important conference on behalf of the company.

With racial victimisation, 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 racial victimisation claims, people typically refer to evidence such as text messages, emails, letters, meeting notes and witness evidence.

What you can ask for in your racial victimisation 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, Fergal was subjected to victimisation when he raised a grievance about race discrimination, and his employer failed to respond to him and stopped his pay. He made a claim in the Employment Tribunal and his claims of victimisation and race discrimination succeeded in part. He was awarded £6,000 for injury to feelings, although this was then reduced by 50% for contributory conduct.

Real racial victimisation cases you can learn from

Summary: a salesperson complained to their employer that they felt they were being discriminated against because of their skin colour. They were told not to be “childish” and two months later were dismissed from the job.

Total award: £55,256.08

Outcome: the Tribunal found that the salesperson had been victimised. He also claimed direct discrimination but the Tribunal found that there was no evidence of direct race discrimination - the real issue was the way he was treated after his original complaint.

Summary: an employee raised numerous grievances which related to his race. He was dismissed because his employer said he had lost trust and confidence in the organisation. He argued that this was victimisation, but the Employment Tribunal did not agree. He then appealed two points to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”), one of which related to his victimisation claim.

Outcome: the appeal was successful, meaning that he won the victimisation claim in the end.