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The claimant had been diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), which manifests itself with pain and fatigue. The symptoms were exacerbated by the claimant being required to work a “treble two system” of 2 day shifts followed by 2 back shifts followed by 2 night shifts. It was the night shifts that were particularly problematic for the claimant as the symptoms were prevalent between 2am and 4am. The claimant would struggle to walk, climb stairs, and had to be driven home and helped with undressing. The claimant was later dismissed from his employment and sought to claim unfair dismissal and disability discrimination on the grounds of his disability.

A disability is defined in Section 1 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 “a person has a disability for the purposes of this act if he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”. The act, in Schedule 1, also defines “long-term” as being 12 months in duration, or likely to last that long or if it is likely to last for the rest of their life. Section 3 of the Act provides further guidance on what constitutes “day-to-day activities” which included mobility.

The basis of the appeal centred on whether the Tribunal erred at the first instance in finding that the Claimant's condition attracted the protection of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The appeal claimed that working a night shift, where the claimant suffered, was not a normal day-to-day activity. The employer argued that the claimant being a police constable was owing to the specialist nature of the work required to work night shifts.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal(EAT) applied the relevant rules to the facts of the case and established that the claimant had a recognised disability. Secondly the Tribunal considered whether the disability impacted upon the claimants day-to-day activities. The respondent claimed that a policeman’s job is specialised in nature and that night work therefore does not constitute a normal day-to-day activity. The EAT disagreed. It noted that a substantial amount of the population works night shifts and as such it would constitute a day-to-day activity. The EAT after considering and agreeing that the disability was substantial and long term dismissed the appeal.

The transcript of this case can be found  Here