Mechanic with cerebral palsy branded 'lazy' wins discrimination claim

Car mechanic with cerebral palsy who was branded ‘lazy and annoying’ as he struggled with his condition wins discrimination claim

• The company was found not to have made appropriate reasonable adjustments 

A car mechanic with cerebral palsy has won a discrimination claim after he was branded ‘lazy and annoying’ by colleagues as he struggled with his condition.

Paul Withers, 37, an MOT tester, explained during his job interview that he had cerebral palsy and suffered weakness in his left leg and arm, affecting his mobility.

An employment tribunal heard that when Withers’ condition worsened, the company failed to implement reasonable changes to make work easier for him.

The tribunal heard it took six months for him to get a chair, and when he struggled with doing tests on lower vehicles and asked for help, his boss said he was ‘lazy’ and his difficulties were ‘annoying’ for other workers.

An employment judge ruled Halfords Autocentres discriminated against Mr Withers and failed to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for his disability, which may have exacerbated his condition.

Undated handout photo issued by Halfords shows a storefront. An employment judge ruled that a branch of Halfords Autocentres had discriminated against Paul Withers, 37

The tribunal heard that Withers started working at the firm’s Milton Keynes branch in October 2019 but four months into the job, his condition deteriorated.

He then had to take a number of absences related to his disability. 

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Due to his absence record, he was given a ‘letter of improvement’.

Withers said: ‘When [manager] Stuart George gave me the letter of improvement, he made it sound like if I had one more time off, they would look at getting rid of me.

‘The way I was spoken to about it made me think that it was part of a disciplinary.’

The tribunal heard his hip became inflamed, and his ankle bones rubbed together which made it painful for him to weight-bear.

The mechanic started to use a crutch to ease the pain.

The change in his condition prompted Halfords to look into implementing adjustments to help him work, but Mr Withers claimed there were ‘repeated failures’ to do this.

The tribunal found the adjustments to his disability were ‘aspirational’ but ‘rarely, if ever’ actually happened.

One of these adjustments was to get Mr Withers a chair to use instead of a stool he had obtained himself to make his work easier.

But the tribunal found the regional general manager – Gary Hall – ‘forgot’ to order the chair until he was reminded four months later – six months after the adjustments assessment.

After another risk assessment, it found Mr Withers found the new chair helpful but struggled to carry out MOTs on low-slung vehicles like sport cars.

Describing this, Mr Withers told the tribunal in Bury St Edmunds he was ‘concerned’ that bosses thought this difficulty could be ‘detrimental to the business’.

During a grievance meeting in August 2021, Mr Withers was discussing his concerns about the lack of adjustments and his difficulty with sports cars when divisional director Paul Senior asked ‘so can you do the role Paul?’

The tribunal found this was ‘crass and insensitive’ and could ‘entirely understand’ why he took offence.

During the grievance investigation, general manager Mr Hall was interviewed.

He said: ‘He always wants others to do his work. I think some of the pushback is from the centre because they believe he is lazy. 

‘His condition seems to have got worse. He doesn’t want to do Class 7 [vans, trucks and lorries], which is really annoying for the other colleagues’.

In November 2021, Mr Withers resigned.

File photo shows Halfords Mot and Service Centre in Northampton town centre. Paul Withers was employed as an MOT tester at a Halfords Autocentre before resigning in November 2021

Employment judge Richard Conley said: ‘As stated in our findings of fact, there was at best partial compliance, and such compliance as there was took far too long to be put in place – the chair being a prime example – by which time [he] had endured considerable pain, and very likely had exacerbated his condition unnecessarily.

‘In addition, he had undergone the stress and anxiety of worrying about the adequacy of his work and the security of his job.

‘There is evidence from a number of sources that where there was a tension between the requirement to make reasonable adjustments and the desire to placate disgruntled staff who perhaps felt they were having to pick up [his] slack.

‘Priority appears to have been given to the interests of other colleagues, presumably as a result of the ‘pushback’ that they were giving, rather than to support a disabled employee who was plainly in need of support.

‘The aims of management at first appeared to have been supportive, but unfortunately, this has given way to a concern about the perception of junior colleagues at the centre and to placing emphasis on matters of performance that could have been managed more effectively.’

Mr Withers’ other claims of harassment, victimisation and unfair dismissal failed.

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