A trainee police officer is seeking £500,000 compensation after he was forced to quit his post at South Woodham Ferrers police station in Essex because he was dyslexic.
According to the Daily Mail, Officer Owen Brooking’s superiors labelled him ‘thick’ and ‘lazy’, despite him having passed his initial training programme.
Brooking complained to the Stratford Employment Tribunal that the Essex force made no allowances for his dyslexia, and ridiculed him.
The tribunal ruled he was left with ‘no option’ but to resign, because he was ‘taunted and humiliated’ by some of his colleagues, while also being forced to re-do endless paperwork in a deliberate bid to humiliate him, the tribunal found.
Brooking is demanding half a million pounds in compensation to reflect lost earnings and pension rights from being denied a 30-year police career.
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Brooking currently works as a Police Community Support Officer in Leigh-on-Sea.
The compensation figure is to go before a High Court judge.
