Brent: Ex-council worker reduced to tears during employment tribunal

Sayed Yusuf, 33, has brought an unfair dismissal case against the London borough, saying it bullied him out of his job after a serious assault in May 2016 impacted his work. 

Mr Yusuf became emotional at Watford Employment Tribunal whilst being questioned by the council’s barrister, Peter Lockley of 11KBW chambers. 

• READ MORE: Employment tribunal hears Brent Council race discrimination race

In May 2016, Mr Yusuf was the victim of an assault which left him struggling with chronic back pain and PTSD. 

He alleges the council failed to make reasonable adjustments and subjected him to race and disability discrimination – claims the council strongly denies. 

“It’s not just me,” Mr Yusuf told the court.  

He said that when he joined Brent, another staff member was on sick leave for ten months and Mr Yusuf was asked to take over his work. 

A manager kept saying of his sick colleague that “he’s dead wood”, he claimed. 

Mr Yusuf testified that, after his own attack: “I was thinking: ‘Ah, I’m the dead wood now.’”

He has been granted permission to sit on an inflatable gym ball throughout the court proceedings.  

But he testified that when he began asking Brent Council to allow him to sit on a gym ball shortly after the assault, he was “laughed at” and his requests were rebuffed. 

Mr Lockley argued that Brent Council had acted promptly on all recommendations made by experts. 

When the council’s occupational health (OH) department suggested in 2017 that Mr Yusuf be given an ergonomic chair, one was ordered. 

But, said Mr Yusuf, that was a year after his assault. 

“As soon as OH recommends it, he grants it,” Mr Lockley said of Mr Yusuf’s manager. 

“But OH is Brent,” replied Mr Yusuf. “OH represents Brent. They have neglected the issue. This could have been done earlier.” 

Whilst the chair was ordered in 2017, the court heard, a simultaneous recommendation that Mr Yusuf be given a standing desk was not acted on until 2018. 

“I was chasing it for another year,” Mr Yusuf testified. 

He said the desk recommendation was only ordered when his symptoms deteriorated, including numbness in his foot, and he had to take five months off. 

Even then, Mr Yusuf testified, OH had recommended an adjustable desk, but the council asked him to move between a seated desk and a standing desk, carrying his work equipment. 

While the council made efforts to reserve the desk, he said, other employees ignored that. 

When the desk was free, the docking station for his laptop did not work. 

“I was trying to resolve, sir,” said Mr Yusuf. “I did everything I could. I was standing, sitting. But it just got worse.” 

Former traffic engineer Sayed Yusuf alleges he was unfairly dismissed and subjected to race and disability discrimination (Image: Archant)

Mr Lockley put it to Mr Yusuf that the council had made other accommodations, including reducing his workload and allowing him to go part-time – but Mr Yusuf said both claims were untrue. 

He said he was allowed to work from home – at first for one day per week, then for two – but he did not go part-time. 

Rather than reducing his workload, he alleged, the council “overloaded” him by asking him to supervise two major road projects with “unrealistic” deadlines. 

He said he had sometimes stayed at the office until 10 o’clock at night. 

Mr Yusuf began to cry when being questioned over his claim that a white colleague was treated differently than him. 

The court told him he must prove discrimination on an incident-by-incident basis, showing how colleagues were treated differently under the same circumstances. 

Mr Yusuf contends that he cannot prove discrimination on an incident-by-incident basis and relies on showing a pattern of conduct by the council. 

“It’s a set of events,” he said, urging the judges to consider his 74-page witness statement as a whole. 

He told the court his white colleague had been permitted to carry over ten days of annual leave, whereas Mr Yusuf lost his, and was allowed to go part-time while Mr Yusuf was not. 

Mr Lockley told the court that a manager had denied those claims - but Mr Yusuf said the manager had not been in post at the relevant time. 

Questioned about his allegation that another staff member racially discriminated against him, Mr Yusuf said: “Can I prove it? It’s not for me... I’m just saying how I am feeling... I’m using this platform to tell my story.” 

A Brent Council spokesperson said: “We do not accept any of Mr Yusuf’s allegations or his account of what happened.  

“We are vigorously defending the claims and are confident that the court will support the council’s case once the trial has concluded."

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