A flying instructor is suing the Ministry of Defence for race discrimination over a Royal Air Force recruitment policy that gave priority to female and ethnic minority recruits over white men. The Telegraph has the story.
Matthew Coverley had two applications to join the RAF rejected for what he claims were “disingenuous” reasons, an employment tribunal was told.
The experienced military pilot initially thought the decision to reject him was “strange” but started to suspect he had been discriminated against when news broke of the force’s controversial recruitment policy.
The tribunal heard that in August 2022, the RAF’s Head of Recruitment, Group Captain Lizzy Nicholl, resigned “in protest at a recruitment policy to give priority to female and ethnic minority recruits over white men”.
It was heard she complained of “bullying” by those who tried to make her implement it.
As a result, Mr. Coverley launched his tribunal against the MoD and has now been given the green light by a judge to proceed with claims of race discrimination at a full hearing. …
In 2020, he… applied to join the RAF.
Mr. Coverley said he had had “positive conversations about his application”, with documents seen at the hearing suggesting he had been placed in a pool of potential recruits as of July 2020.
However, in November 2020, he was “removed” and had his application rejected on the grounds that he needed “phase one training” because he was not a commissioned officer pilot.
Mr. Coverley said he “never heard anything more about his application” after the initially promising conversation – not even that it had been closed.
He claims the reason for closing his application was “disingenuous” because he did not need phase one training.
In July 2022, he applied to join the RAF again, but received an email two weeks later rejecting him, which said that “aircrew were not being recruited”.
Mr. Coverley told the hearing he found this a “strange response” but had to accept it – before he later found out the RAF had not stopped recruiting aircrew.
Worth reading in full.
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