The 17 employees successfully complained of indirect racial discrimination. The employment tribunal and the EAT held that the rule was discriminatory and that the business justification put forward was not adequate.

This was a situation where a male applicant failed to obtain an interview for a sales/trainee manager position with a women-only health club. The job entailed showing potential members around the club, including the changing rooms, saunas, sun-bed room, and toilet.

The EAT concluded that the club could rely upon a (genuine) occupational qualification defence in such circumstances.

Ms DeBique joined the British Army as a result of a recruitment drive in her home state of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Some years later, she gave birth to a daughter and she subsequently arranged with her unit to work from 8.30 am to 4.30 pm during the week and not to work at weekends. This caused problems and she was disciplined for being late on one occasion. Eventually, she was told that she would have to make arrangements so that she could be available for duty on a 24/7 basis. She also experienced considerable problems because her potential child-carer was not allowed to come to the UK from St Vincent.

She brought proceedings for indirect sex and race discrimination and successfully claimed that the army had applied a provision, criterion, or practice (the need to be available 24/7) that would have a greater detriment to female soldiers compared to male ones.

This case, at the EAT, was about what compensation could be awarded in a harassment and victimisation case. It is a classic example, however, of the kind of harassment to which an individual can be subject. Kerry Fletcher was a lesbian who was subject to prolonged sexual harassment of a very unpleasant kind by her superior in the army. She complained about the treatment and was away from work on health grounds. During this period, she was subject to a recommendation that she be discharged from the army on the grounds that she was ‘temperamentally unsuitable’.

She was awarded aggravated damages for the treatment that she had suffered.

The local authority offered more places in selective secondary education to boys than girls.

This was held to be treating those girls less favourably on the grounds of their sex and the fact that the local authority had not intended to discriminate was not relevant. In the absence of an actual comparator, the court will need to construct a hypothetical one.