What happens after employment has ended?

The legal duty on the employer not to victimise does not end just because the employment has ended. For example, if employers normally provide ex-employees with references, they must provide them for all, including those who have raised discrimination issues. It does not matter how much time has passed since the date of the “protected act”. Instead, what matters is that the poor treatment (for example refusing a reference) happens because of the protected act.

A 2012 case, Rowstock v (1) Jessemey and (2) ECHR ([2012] UKEAT/0112/12/DM), which concluded, surprisingly, that the EA 10 provides no remedy for post-termination victimisation, in breach of the Equal Treatment Directive, has been described as wrongly decided in a more recent case, Onu v Akwiku (UKEAT/0283/12/RN).