Maybe 2010 Will Be The Year We All Woke Up After All?

A park ranger sacked for asking a black colleague if he 'put polish' on his legs has won £40,000 compensation after a judge ruled that skin colour is a 'fact of life'.

I know, I know, it's only one judge.

But still. The facts uncovered in this case bear looking at.

First, the attitude of the complainer, bolstered by knowledge that he has a winning hand in Victimhood Poker:

In an email to his boss, Mr Parker wrote: 'I was really shocked when I heard what he said so I just looked at him and kept quiet.

I strongly believe Michael Farmer was being rude and disrespectful in a racially motivated way.

He requested a 'full-scale investigation and disciplinary action'.

Wow! Check out the giant chip on his shoulder.

Should we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant 'disciplinary action in the event the allegations are proven'?

Well, I wouldn't, because despite Mr Farmer issuing the same 'I'm sorry if I caused offence' apology that we are always asked to make do with in other situations, this chap wasn't satisfied without his pound of flesh:

But Mr Parker said he would not accept any 'informal arrangements' and after a two-day internal investigation, Mr Farmer was told that the allegations had been upheld and he was guilty of gross misconduct.

So he went back to work with a black mark against his name.

And then:

Mr Farmer, a married father of two from Catford, South-East London, carried on working for four months but was finally fired after a second disciplinary hearing chaired by council official Kyron Peters-Bean, whose title is Head of Resilience (Ed: Nope, me neither...), in September 2008.

Its report concluded that 'the most concerning aspect of the investigation' was claims by two other rangers that 'this was not the first time Michael Farmer had made statements of this nature'.

Oh, dear. Any evidence for this?

Nope! It seems, if you are 'Head of Resilience', you don't need to worry about that sort of thing:

But the employment tribunal found no evidence that Mr Farmer had made racist comments before.

The judge said: 'The tribunal found it disturbing that the prejudicial conclusions of the investigatory process appeared to be founded upon allegations which had never surfaced during the interviews.'

And furthermore, the Head of Resilience didn't prove very resilient when facing a real court, as opposed to a kangaroo one:

The tribunal found that Mr Peters-Bean was not a 'convincing' witness and was 'evasive' when cross-examined about how much he had taken into account Mr Farmer's alleged membership of the BNP.

The judge said: 'We were driven to the conclusion that the disciplinary hearing failed to maintain an objective approach to the serious allegation against the claimant.

'The disciplinary panel had made up its mind that the claimant was going to be dismissed. . . and failed to give any consideration to any other sanction.'

I bet he's still Head of Resilience, though...

Meanwhile, Mr Farmer is £40,000 richer, but still out of a job:

Mr Farmer, who has previously set up a black youth community football team, said the idea he was racist 'was the antithesis of what I stand for'.

''What chance do I have as a middle-aged man getting another job in a recession?'

What chance indeed? Perhaps the council should be forced to sack the idiot that pursued the grievance, and give Mr Farmer his job?

Hell, maybe they should make him Head of Resilience. He's proved himself to be so, hasn't he..?