Race discrimination: Evasive replies to any questions relevant in drawing inferences

In Dattani v Chief Constable of West Mercia Police [2005] IRLR 327, the EAT holds:

• The employment tribunal erred in dismissing a complaint of race discrimination without determining the precise criterion on which the employee had been chosen for transfer as the only ethnic minority candidate in the selection pool.
• The employment tribunal also erred in failing to take into account information provided by the employer in documents other than its replies to formal statutory questionnaires under s.65 of the Race Relations Act 1976, which might have provided material from which inferences of discriminatory treatment could be drawn.
• The employment tribunal's decision, based on findings that were not consistent with the information contained in documents available to it, was perverse.