Police watchdog sues UK Home Office for alleged race bias for being white

A UK police watchdog is taking legal action against the country's Home Office for alleged race discrimination, claiming to be paid less as a white official as compared to his black predecessor.

Matthew John Parr, one of the five Inspectors of Constabulary who oversee the UK's police forces including the Metropolitan Police, took his claim to the employment tribunal in 2018 and the case is to come up for a full hearing this year.

The details came to light this week as a High Court judge ruled to lift restrictions on it being reported after UK Home Secretary Priti Patel lost an appeal for the proceedings to be kept confidential.

"Although the Appellant is the Home Secretary, and although the Respondent is the holder of an office to which he was appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the Home Secretary, and although his work is the inspection of police forces, the confidentiality alleged in this case was not a matter of any state secret, or sensitive policing, or public interest immunity, or private discussions of public policy, or anything of that sort," notes Justice Martin Griffiths as part of his ruling dated March 6, dismissing the appeal for confidentiality.

In his claims for equal pay and sex and race discrimination, Parr says that his 140,000 pounds a year salary is too low compared with the 185,000 pounds salary of Wendy Williams, the last inspector appointed before him, and alleges gender and race-related grounds for that discrepancy.

The UK Home Office insists his lower salary is the result of a drive within the department to reduce senior staff salary burdens.

In reference to the case, which will now go on for a full tribunal hearing, Justice Griffiths notes: "His (Parr) named comparator is the HMI (Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary) appointed before him, who is a woman of BME (black and minority ethnic) heritage.

"The Appellant (Patel, respondent to the claims) admits that he does 'like work' within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010, and that he is paid less, but contends that the reason for the discrepancy in salaries, which are apparently individually negotiated for each HMI, is a pay policy which aims to reduce senior salaries. The Appellant also denies the allegations of sex and race discrimination".

The Home Office appeal was about whether part of the proceedings should be heard in private, and whether some of the Employment Tribunal's decision, when it is eventually made, should be withheld from publication or otherwise kept confidential. Now that the appeal has been dismissed, the details of the case will be open to the public when it returns to an employment tribunal later this year.