The Claimant, a practising Christian, was a Non-Executive Director ("NED") of an NHS Trust overseen by the Respondent. As a result of remarks made by the Claimant to the national media – namely that it is not in the best interests of a child to be adopted by anyone other than a mother and father and that it is "not normal" to be adopted by a single parent or a same-sex couple – the Respondent terminated the Claimant's appointment as NED. The Claimant alleged discrimination because of his religious belief and brought claims of direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, victimisation and harassment. The ET dismissed the Claimant's claims, and the Claimant appealed on the grounds that (1) the ET misdirected itself in relation to the "reason why" approach to direct discrimination in that it failed to identify any appropriate comparators, (2) the ET erred in its approach to the test of group disadvantage for the purposes of determining the complaint of indirect discrimination, and (3) the ET erred in its analysis of the Claimant's victimisation claim in that there were insufficient findings in respect of the protected act(s) and a failure to find that the "manner" in which the Claimant made his statements to the media was not properly separable from the making of statements.

The EAT held that the ET had not erred in relation to any of the grounds, and the appeal would be dismissed.