A
family has won the right to bring the first posthumous employment tribunal on
the behalf of their son who they claim was driven to hang himself because of
racial abuse at work.
Postal
worker Jermaine Lee, 26, was found hanged at his home in Hall Green,
Birmingham, in November 1999.
His
family claim that Jermaine had been bullied and harassed at work over an
eight-month period before he was sacked from his job at the Aston sorting
office in Birmingham.
Employment
tribunal chairman John Van Gelder allowed Jermaine’s mother Unnell Lee to lodge
the action on behalf of her son at a preliminary hearing in Birmingham, despite
the claim being outside the usual time limit.
"From
the family’s point of view they want to highlight the issue of racial
discrimination as much as possible to prevent any further injustice and prevent
any further action of this kind," said Navneet Patwalia, the solicitor
representing the Lee family.
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"We
will be looking very closely at all the details and continuing to talk to the
family to do anything we can to help them," a spokesman for the Royal Mail
said.
By Ben Willmott
