Man ordered to pay council over ‘fabricated’ claim of racial discrimination

Joseph Mayanja claimed he was offered the role of Refugee and New Communities Integration Officer following an interview in October 2021, but that offer was then withdrawn.

Mr Mayanja, who is black, took the council to a tribunal, claiming it was in “breach of contract” and it had “directly discriminated against him because of race”.

But Employment Judge O’Neill accepted that Mr Mayanja had only been told he was “the preferred candidate” in an email and he was withdrawn from the selection process because he lied on his job application.

At a recent hearing in Leeds, he ruled that Mayanja should pay £2,000 towards the council’s legal fees because he “acted unreasonably” when he took the case to an employment tribunal and “fabricated the harassment claim”.

During the tribunal, Mr Mayanja claimed that Helen Clipsom, who was chair of the selection panel, offered him the position in an answer phone message in October 2021, but he had “no evidence of such calls” as they had been erased.

Mrs Clipsom denied making an offer and said she became “frustrated” with Mr Mayanja because he failed to provide the correct contact details for previous employers so she could obtain references, despite numerous requests.

Mr Mayanja claimed Mrs Clipsom harassed him during a phone call on November 5 or 6 and said: “This is not Africa, the procedure in this country you provide all former employee details”.

But phone records show that he did not have any conversations with her on either day.

The judge’s ruling stated: “Under cross examination the claimant was unable to give an account of what had been said and was unable to recall the words used or provide a consistent date.”

Mr Clipsom said that when she finally obtained references from Mr Mayanja’s former employers in November, she realised he had lied on his original job application.

He had overstated his annual salary at one job by £3,000, made false claims about the amount of experience he had and failed to mention that he had worked as a traffic warden in Stockport.

The employment judge accepted that he was withdrawn from the selection process due to “reasonable concern about his integrity”.

Mr Mayanja claimed Mrs Clipsom “acted in bad faith and went beyond her powers” by “undertaking additional investigations following the receipt of the references” that were “driven by conscious or unconscious racial bias”.

But the employment judge dismissed the claim and said it would be “remiss of a recruiting officer not to investigate such discrepancies”.

The judge said he was satisfied Mrs Clipsom’s evidence was “truthful and well founded” and her decision was “not related to race or ethnicity”.