Clifton Diocese v Parker: EAT clarifies burden of proof in religion or belief discrimination claims

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has overturned findings of religion or belief discrimination against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton, holding that the Employment Tribunal committed multiple errors of law in its analysis of the burden of proof under section 136 of the Equality Act 2010. The case, decided by His Honour Judge James Tayler on 12 May 2026, is reported at [2026] EAT 68.

The underlying facts were stark. Janet Parker, a qualified chartered accountant and the Diocese's Head of Finance, was dismissed for alleged gross misconduct shortly after returning from statutory adoption leave. The Employment Tribunal found her dismissal to be both unfair and wrongful, concluding that the disciplinary allegations had been deliberately contrived by her line manager and HR adviser as a direct consequence of her request to return part-time. Those findings were not appealed.

The contested issue was narrower: whether the Diocese had also discriminated against Parker as a non-Catholic. The Employment Tribunal upheld four heads of religion or belief discrimination — the addition of disciplinary allegations, the rushing of the investigation and hearing, the failure to account for the claimant's mental health, and the mocking of her during the disciplinary meeting by the Diocese's external investigator, Mrs Lawrence. A harassment finding was also made in respect of the latter.

The EAT identified three grounds on which the Employment Tribunal's approach was flawed.

First, the Employment Tribunal adopted a "blanket approach" at the first stage of the section 136 analysis, relying on a composite list of criticisms directed overwhelmingly at Mrs Murray, Mr Cook, and Monsignor Massey to support an inference that Mrs Lawrence had discriminated on religious grounds. As HHJ Tayler observed, the reasoning was required to explain why the acts of one set of individuals could generate an inference of discriminatory motivation in a different individual who carried out different acts. No such explanation was given.

Second, the Employment Tribunal erred by treating the absence of an explanation for the respondent's conduct as a factor capable of shifting the burden at stage one. Under the framework confirmed in Efobi v Royal Mail Group Ltd [2021] UKSC 37 and Igen Ltd v Wong [2005] EWCA Civ 142, the tribunal must at the first stage assume that no adequate explanation exists; explanation becomes relevant only once the burden has shifted. To reason backwards from an absence of justification to a prima facie case of discrimination inverts the statutory scheme.

Third, and relatedly, the Employment Tribunal had already found elsewhere in its judgement that the disciplinary process had been set in motion by Mrs Murray and Mr Cook as a response to Parker's flexible working request — a non-discriminatory explanation that the Employment Tribunal itself accepted. It was therefore inconsistent to treat the same conduct as unexplained for the purpose of grounding an inference of religious discrimination. Additionally, the EAT criticised the Employment Tribunal for applying a test of whether the respondent had provided a "reasonable and coherent" explanation rather than the correct statutory question of whether it had demonstrated a non-discriminatory reason.

The judgement includes a practical checklist — framed as sense-check questions — intended to assist tribunals in approaching discrimination complaints with logical rigour: identifying the act, identifying the alleged discriminator, and asking with care what it is about the facts that could support an inference that the protected characteristic was causative. As the EAT reiterated, grossly unfair conduct does not, without more, constitute evidence of discrimination.

The discrimination and harassment complaints were remitted to the same Employment Tribunal for redetermination, with the panel's extensive findings of fact otherwise undisturbed.