Terence Merck

Two male police constables in the armed response unit were engaged in a friendly and spontaneous public interaction with a female celebrity while on duty.

A short video of the interaction attracted a large number of comments on TikTok and social media, including unfounded allegations of misogyny, and the incident and comments were reported by the press. As a result, their firearms authorisation was permanently withdrawn and they were transferred out of operational services.

The tribunal was persuaded that the claimants were directly discriminated against because of their male sex, both by permanently withdrawing their firearms and by insisting on their transfer from operational services.

The tribunal agreed with the claimants’ submission that the withdrawal decision was based on subjective views of male police officers’ conduct, rather than the conduct of the claimants as individuals in the incident, and a female officer in the same circumstances would not have been treated in the same way.

Although much reliance was placed on the competencies and high standard required of armed officers on duty in the written rationale for the withdrawal decision, the tribunal found that the competencies were not in the mind of the decision maker when making the decision.

Mr Merck was instructed by BTO LLP.