A former Lloyds Bank employee who won his case for unfair dismissal after he was fired for using the N-word during a training session has been awarded £490,000 at the employment tribunal.
Carl Borg-Neal worked as a manager at the bank and was one of more than 70,000 employees invited to attend race education training. He had a clean disciplinary record and had worked for the group for more than 30 years.
During a training session in 2021, which discussed intent versus effect, Borg-Neal asked how he should handle a situation where he had heard someone from an ethnic minority use a word that might be considered offensive if used by someone not in that minority.
He gave the example of rap music, saying to the trainer: “The most common example being use of the N-word in the black community”. However, he used the full word rather than the abbreviation, the tribunal heard.
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The claimant immediately apologised and did not repeat the word, but subsequently, the trainer took four or five days off work as a result of the slur. The bank dismissed Borg-Neal for gross misconduct.
In judgment, employment judge Lewis said that Lloyds had been “entirely reasonable” to hold the view that the word is “appalling” and should be avoided in a professional environment, and that hearing it might be painful and shocking for a black employee.
However, the judge added that “in the very unusual and particular circumstances of this case, the tribunal finds that no reasonable employer would have dismissed the claimant”.
“If the bank wanted to make a point, it could have given the claimant a warning. The whole purpose was to explore intention vs effect, and for the attendees to learn.”
The tribunal rejected a claim for race discrimination, holding that no substantial part of the reason for dismissal was that Borg-Neal was white, rather that he had used the word and this had badly distressed the trainer.
But it did uphold one of Borg-Neal’s claims for disability discrimination, however, based on the fact he has dyslexia, which can lead to him saying things before losing his train of thought.
“The evidence led us to believe, on the balance of probabilities, that the claimant’s dyslexia was a strong factor causing how he expressed himself at the session, and in his use of the full word rather than finding a means to avoid it.”
In a statement in August, when the judgment was originally published, Lloyds Banking Group said it had a “zero-tolerance policy on any racial discrimination or use of racist language”.
Additional reporting by Jo Faragher.
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