An accountancy firm administrator has had her claim for race, sex and age discrimination rejected by a tribunal - which had earlier turned down her claim for constructive dismissal.

Kate Akighir was employed by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) as a client executive administrator from September 2017 until late August 2022 when she left following her resignation.

She lodged a complaint to the employment tribunal alleging she had been unfairly dismissed by way of constructive dismissal.

Following a hearing in November last year, the tribunal ruled that Miss Akighir had not been constructively dismissed and she had not resigned because of discrimination.

But issues relating to discrimination were left to be determined at a future hearing which has now ruled the claims are time-barred and even if they weren’t out of time, they are without merit and have no reasonable prospect of success.

Miss Akighir’s case was that she had resigned as a consequence of alleged discrimination, including in particular because of two alleged ‘last straw’ incidents.

But the lawyer representing PwC said the core element of Miss Akighir’s allegations, relating to race, sex and age discrimination, occurred as long ago as January 2020 - more than two years before her resignation and as such, was time-barred.

The tribunal found that the evidence from Miss Akighir herself was inconsistent with any ongoing discrimination.

During an internal investigation in August 2021, she made the comment that ‘I personally actually think there is no racism going on’.

Miss Akighir resigned on July 7 2022. However, a member of staff made an allegation against her which led to a meeting at which she made an allegation regarding PwC’s ‘mindset training’ which she claimed to have been discriminatory.

At the same meeting, which took place on July 27, she said she felt forced out of her job and she wouldn’t have chosen to leave the job she loved. She said she felt that the firm should pay her compensation.

The training programme had been a global initiative run by PwC and had not been timed or targeted against Miss Akighir. Its aim was to improve standards of behaviour throughout the accountancy giant’s offices everywhere and was ‘most unlikely to be discriminatory’, the tribunal concluded.

This ‘mindset training’ had ended by February 2022 and so was time-barred in the tribunal proceedings.

In cross-examination, Miss Akighir accepted that the training was not racist and neither did she think the Isle of Man office was racist.

There was no evidence that other employees had complained about the contents of the training programme and she had made no complaint about it before she resigned.

The tribunal said Miss Akighir’s claim cannot be regarded as scandalous but it was pursued in a manner that was borderline vexatious and viewed as a whole, conducted unreasonably.