25th February 2026
Balancing Protected Beliefs In The Workplace
In recent times, the Employment Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal have reshaped the legal landscape for belief-related discrimination claims under the Equality Act 2010. Notable decisions such as Higgs v Farmors School and For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers have brought into question what a protected belief is and how these should be balanced in the workplace. This article discusses a recent controversial Yorkshire case that brought these questions back into focus.
The Facts Of The Case
Felix Ngole (Claimant) was offered a role with Touchstone Leeds (Respondent), an organisation providing mental health and wellbeing support within diverse communities, including significant work with LGBTQI+ communities. Mr Ngole holds orthodox Christian views on homosexuality.
When the Respondent could not get in contact with Mr Ngole’s references, they searched for the Claimant online. This revealed historic media reports concerning his earlier litigation with Sheffield University, where he had posted that homosexuality is a sin.
The Respondent took the stance that if service users were to see these media reports online, they would find the beliefs objectionable and not feel comfortable around the Claimant. Therefore, the Claimant may be unable to perform the duties required in the role due to his beliefs. They withdrew the job offer, required him to attend a second interview and refused to reinstate the offer following the interview. The Employment Tribunal (ET) upheld this decision.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal’s Findings
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that the ET did not properly separate and analyse the reasons why Touchstone Leeds acted as it did.
The EAT held that it understood the Respondent’s need to ensure that the Claimant could fully comply with the requirements of the role and therefore accepted that it was appropriate for the Respondent to ask whether the Claimant would still be able to perform the duties before employment commenced.
However, the EAT held that the ET failed to analyse what the Respondent’s service users might have found objectionable about the posts being referred to. It seems that the Respondent assumed that service users would object to the claimants’ online posts and beliefs that ‘homosexuality is a sin’ and ‘same sex marriage is a sin, whether we like it or not’ if they were to find the media reports online. The EAT held that if the comments the Claimant had made online and the dislike of his religious views were the reason why the Respondent failed to reinstate the job offer, this may amount to unlawful direct discrimination.
In their outcome, the EAT explained that the decision not to reinstate the job offer will have to be analysed again in full.
What Does This Mean For Employers?
This judgment reinforces that when dealing with protected beliefs and discrimination, a granular level of analysis must be applied, distinguishing between multiple reasons for taking a decision and then breaking down each decision and explaining why each reason is justified and lawful.
The judgment reaffirms that employers cannot justify treatment based purely on concern that a third party might react negatively to an employee’s protected beliefs, and instead, individuals’ different beliefs must be balanced.
Finally, this judgement also reaffirms that a fair process is being followed, and employers should always ask clear questions, give the employee sufficient opportunity to respond and ensure conclusions are based on evidence, not assumptions.
