(3) Assessing Whether There Has Been Harassment (a) Relevance of the perception of the victim : In conventional cases of direct discrimination, the House of Lords, in R v Birmingham has held that it is enough that the victim considered – reasonably – that they had been treated less favourably, even in the face of objective evidence. There must be some reasonable grounds for that perception; it is not enough that the

doi:10.4324/9781843145585-45

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(3) Assessing Whether There Has Been Harassment (a) Relevance of the perception of the victim

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ABSTRACT

The ultimate judgment ... reflects an objective assessment by the tribunal of all the facts. That said, amongst the factors to be considered are the applicant’s subjective perception of that which is the subject of complaint and the understanding, motive and intention of the alleged discriminator. Thus, the act complained of may be so obviously detrimental, that is, disadvantageous (see Insitu)28 to the applicant as a woman by intimidating her or undermining her dignity at work, that the lack of any contemporaneous complaint by her is of little or no significance. By contrast she may complain of one or more matters which if taken individually may not objectively signify much, if anything, in terms of detriment ... By contrast the facts may simply disclose hypersensitivity on the part of the applicant to conduct which was reasonably not perceived by the alleged discriminator as being to her detriment – no finding of discrimination can then follow.