Mr Power, a spiritualist, was dismissed from his employment with Greater Manchester Police Authority as a trainer of special constables on the grounds, amongst other things, of ‘his current work in the psychic field’. He complained that the authority had discriminated against him on the grounds of his religious or philosophical belief. The Authority appealed against the decision of the employment tribunal that Mr Power's spiritualist beliefs in God, psychics and life after death were capable of being religious and philosophical beliefs for the purposes of the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, SI 2003/1660. In dismissing the appeal the tribunal reviewed the decision in Grainger plc v Nicholson (noted above) and, upholding the employment tribunal's decision that Mr Power's beliefs amounted to a religious belief, the judge referred to the history of the spiritualist church and the fact that its membership was claimed to be the eighth largest faith group in the 2001 British census. He further held that the employment tribunal's decision that Mr Power's belief in life after death and the capacity to communicate with spirits ‘on the other side’ was worthy of respect in a democratic society and had the necessary cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance such as to amount to a philosophical belief was not perverse. [RA]
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