An 88-year-old has recently become the oldest person in the UK to win an age discrimination case.
Here’s the story…
In 1991, Eileen Jolly was aged 61, and joined what’s now known as the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust where she went on to work in various roles.
In 2005, she became a medical secretary to surgeon, Brendan Smith. One of her tasks was to keep a list of patients who were waiting for non-urgent surgery.
In 2015, the waiting list was changed to an electronic database, and Eileen was told she would have to attend training on how to use the new system. However, through no fault of her own, the training course was never completed.
When she returned from holiday in 2016, Eileen was told she was ‘being investigated’, and had to collect her things and leave the premises.
In 2017, she was dismissed for ‘failing to carry out her duties in managing the waiting list’, despite having received inadequate training.
After losing an appeal, she took the Trust to the employment tribunal, where Eileen won her case for unfair dismissal, age discrimination, disability discrimination and breach of contract.
The judge found the Trust had not managed the dismissal process correctly. What’s more, her manager had collected ‘inappropriate’ and ‘discriminatory’ evidence about Eileen from colleagues who complained about her age and mobility.
Other high-profile cases
As you may remember, in 2009, the BBC1 programme Countryfile was moved from Sunday mornings to a peak timeslot. At the same time, four female presenters in their 40s and 50s – Miriam O’Reilly, Charlotte Smith, Juliet Morris and Michaela Strachan – were dropped replaced with younger presenters.
In 2011, Miriam O’Reilly took the BBC to an employment tribunal, claiming age and sex discrimination. As part of her evidence, she said a director had previously told her to ‘be careful with those wrinkles when high definition comes in’.
She also claimed for victimisation, because she was blamed for newspaper stories criticising the decision, and felt ‘hounded out’ of the corporation.
The tribunal found the discrimination against Miriam was not justified, and her claims for age discrimination and victimisation were upheld.
It’s not the only time the BBC has been accused of ageism. Another example was when Arlene Phillips was dropped as a judge from Strictly Come Dancing (although she returned as a panellist on another BBC talent show).
What this means to you
It’s illegal for your employer to discriminate against you because they think you are too old, or too young, to do your job properly. If it happens to you, we can help you bring a claim against them.
We’ve also written about age discrimination in these articles – we hope you find them useful:
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