Whilst not an 'employee' Mr Polat enjoyed the same rights as a 'worker' with regard to discrimination protection. During his time at the school, his fellow colleagues found him to be unreliable and there were instances where he would not report to the head teacher when absent. On a similar occasion he had logged off the system meaning that he ignored further communications from staff members, which on one occasion had led to the school looking foolish in front of a local authority when discussing the working of a virtual learning environment.
It was after another instance of absence that the school decided to ask the agency for an alternative list of candidates for the role, as the head mistress had made the decision to terminate Mr Polat's contract.
Using evidence from an exchange of emails from two staff members Mr Polat claimed age discrimination as the reason for his termination. Statements that they made included:
Ms Sutherland: "I don't like Sait [Mr Polat]."
Ms Sutherland: "I don't like people who 'knows it all' [sic]."
Ms Franklin: "Don't worry…he will find out soon enough…he is still young."
Ms Sutherland: "Yeh, these bloody young boys."
Although the jury took the hiring of Mr Polat from a choice of 12 in itself to be indicative of a lack of age discrimination, amongst other supporting evidence to suggest that it was in fact his actions whilst in the role as opposed to his age to have been the reason for his termination, the emails did turn the onus on the school to prove that they did not discriminate Mr Polat based on his youth. The school succeeded by presenting information on Mr Polat's predecessor and successor, who were both of a similar age. Added to this the fact that the staff involved in the potentially critical email exchange were of ages 34 at the time and so not a significant age gap to support his claims.
Polat v Governing Body of the Skinners' Company's School for Girls and others ET/3202237/09 & ET/3202243/09