The Equality Act is on your side. Speak to Kestrel.
The Equality Act protects nine characteristics including sex, race, disability, age, pregnancy, religion and sexual orientation, from day one of employment with no service requirement and no cap on compensation. Claims cover direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation. The deadline is three months less one day from the act, so the diary starts today.
Discrimination takes defined forms. Direct: worse treatment because of a characteristic. Indirect: a neutral-looking rule that disadvantages your group without justification. Harassment: unwanted conduct creating a degrading or hostile environment. Victimisation: being punished for complaining. Disability adds a duty to make reasonable adjustments.
There is no qualifying service and no cap on compensation, which includes injury to feelings assessed within published bands updated each year, as well as financial loss. Tribunals can also draw inferences: where facts suggest discrimination, the employer must prove otherwise.
Time runs fast: three months less one day from the act, or the end of continuing conduct, extended only by ACAS conciliation. A written grievance is usually the sensible first step, and the law protects you from retaliation for raising one, which is itself victimisation if it happens.
Guide edition: August 2026. General information for England and Wales. Current law and your particular facts require assessment before action.
Dates, words used, who was present, and how each incident differed from colleagues' treatment. Contemporaneous notes carry real weight.
A grievance naming the treatment and the characteristic. It creates the record, triggers protection against victimisation, and sometimes fixes the problem.
Within three months less one day of the last act. The clock is unforgiving; conciliation pauses it while settlement is explored.
Tribunal claims are won on patterns and documents: the diary, the comparators, the employer's shifting explanations.
Tell Kestrel what happened. The AI legal assistant gathers the facts and prepares a summary for you to check. Request lawyer review from your Legal Centre.
Speak to Kestrel nowThree months less one day from the discriminatory act, or the last act in continuing conduct, to start ACAS conciliation. Earlier events can still be evidence of the pattern even where out of time.
This guide concerns Employment. It forms part of our reference library. Kestrel is preparing for SRA authorisation. See practice details for the proposed service and current availability.
Most discrimination is subtle. Patterns win cases: your diary, meeting invitations that stopped, opportunities routed elsewhere, and comparators. Tribunals may infer discrimination where the employer's explanation does not hold.
Retaliation for a genuine complaint is victimisation, a separate claim with its own compensation. That protection is precisely why the complaint should be written rather than whispered.
Financial loss plus injury to feelings within published bands that rise with severity, uncapped overall. A lawyer will give you a range on the facts rather than a fantasy number.
Labelling it banter changes nothing. If conduct relating to a characteristic creates a hostile or humiliating environment, it is harassment, and how it felt to you is central to the test.
Start with the AI legal assistant, then follow the case, messages and lawyer review in your Legal Centre.
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