London Ambulance Service v Garrett: EAT overturns belief and race discrimination findings

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has overturned findings of direct belief discrimination and race discrimination against London Ambulance Service NHS Trust, in a judgement handed down on 29 May 2026 by His Honour Judge Auerbach ([2026] EAT 77).

The case arose from disciplinary proceedings taken against paramedic Ricky Garrett following two incidents in 2020: a dispute with a Black colleague in January, during which he used the word "roadman", and a mess-room conversation in June in which he rejected the concept of systemic racism. Following investigation and a disciplinary hearing, Mr Garrett received a final written warning and was required to complete unconscious bias training, a Black allyship workshop, and a written reflective practice. He brought claims of direct discrimination on grounds of both race and philosophical belief.

The employment tribunal, by a majority, upheld three complaints of direct belief discrimination and one overlapping complaint of race discrimination, awarding £3,750 for injury to feelings. The Trust appealed.

At the heart of the appeal lay the identification of the protected belief. Mr Garrett's claim had originally described his belief as the rejection of systemic racism. By the time of the case management preliminary hearing, however, this had crystallised into a broader, normative belief: that all people are one race and should be treated with equal respect regardless of colour or culture, what the EAT termed the "treatment belief". The employment tribunal then framed the rejection of systemic racism not as the protected belief itself, but as a manifestation of it.

HHJ Auerbach found that analysis to be fundamentally flawed. The treatment belief, as formulated, is normative: it concerns how people ought to be treated. The rejection of systemic racism is descriptive: it concerns what is said to exist in society. The tribunal had reasoned, at paragraph 113 of its decision, that there was an "undeniable link" between the two, and that the latter "flows logically" from the former. The EAT rejected this reasoning. A person who holds the treatment belief could, entirely consistently, accept the existence of systemic racism. The two beliefs operate in different registers. The majority had also misdescribed the theory of systemic racism, attributing to it a characteristic it does not have as the tribunal itself had defined it, which infected the logical chain leading to its conclusion.

Since the finding that the no-systemic-racism belief was a manifestation of the protected belief underpinned all three discrimination findings, the appeal succeeded on that ground alone. The EAT nonetheless addressed the remaining grounds.

On the failure to interview a potential witness (Ms Shah) during the investigation, the tribunal had not asked whether an investigator would equally have closed the investigation early had the claimant made some other racially charged remark unconnected to any protected belief. That was a material omission when considering the comparator question.

On the disciplinary decision-maker's rejection of the claimant's own research materials, the tribunal had ignored specific evidence that the material was discounted for lacking academic rigour, an explanation offered by the respondent and supported by its consistent approach to other evidence in the same hearing. The tribunal was wrong to state that no non-discriminatory reason had been advanced.

The race discrimination finding, which concerned the same evidential point, was found to be perverse. There was no proper factual basis on which to draw an inference that the claimant's own race influenced the treatment, nor to shift the burden of proof to the employer.

HHJ Auerbach substituted a decision dismissing all four complaints, applying the guidance in Jafri v Lincoln College [2014] ICR 920, finding remission unnecessary where the only proper conclusions were clear.

In a postscript, the EAT criticised the tribunal's written reasons for failing to set out the minority member's reasoning or to identify which members formed the majority and which dissented, noting that both omissions fell short of good practice.

London Ambulance Service NHS Trust v Ricky Garrett [2026] EAT 77. Hearing: 24 March 2026. Judgement: 29 May 2026.