Standfirst: A disability discrimination complaint goes in. A redacted DSAR comes back out. PageGroup’s first instinct is not fairness or process. It is Googling. Cepac’s ET3 says it did not know about health until 8 October. The same ET3 then quotes an agency intro that literally flags health problems. Meanwhile the Tribunal is obsessed with my “conduct” after short notice hearings and refused adjustments. So I have stopped begging for symmetry. I have changed the battlefield.
The Tribunal Picked A Side And It Was Not Mine
I have already done the polite procedural route. I have already apologised for the language that opponents love to clip. I have already provided contemporaneous medical evidence about impaired emotional regulation under acute stress, including an ambulance call in January and GP support.
None of that has stopped the Tribunal reducing a disability shaped incident into a character flaw. The logic is brutal. They do not have to examine what was done to a disabled litigant in person if they can instead examine how that litigant reacted.
That is why I am no longer pandering. I have filed complaints. I have involved my MP. And I have moved the fight into the only arena that does not reward ambush and asymmetry.
Public record. Public scrutiny. Public accountability.
PageGroup’s Redacted DSAR Tells You Everything
The question I asked publicly was simple. What is PageGroup hiding in an email chain titled “Discrimination”.
The DSAR answers it, even with half the page blacked out.
On 9 October 2024 a Page employee forwards the chain under the subject “Fw: Discrimination case by candidate”. Then the line that should sit on PageGroup’s corporate values wall, right next to the diversity posters.
“Don’t freak out” and “Looks like this candidate may one that does this regularly”.
That is the vibe. Not “what happened”. Not “what adjustments were offered”. Not “what did the client do”. Straight to profiling. Straight to narrative control. A narrative war? I’m game.
A second email in the same chain asks legal for next steps, admits Page introduced the candidate, and then says the quiet part out loud.
“I have googled him and his previous company and it looks like he went through an employment tribunal”.
That is not recruitment compliance. That is risk management by character assassination. A reputation fight, let’s fucking go then.
PageGroup did not need my medical evidence to choose its lens. It needed a browser tab.
‘Sole Respondent’ Until It Isn’t
The same DSAR thread shows Page trying to keep the client as “sole respondent”. That line appears repeatedly in internal summaries.
Then December arrives and the tone changes. A Page employee emails asking for help to get legal on a call because “we have been cited as a co respondent”.
So which is it?
Page wants the profit of being the gatekeeper and the introducer. It also wants the legal risk to sit neatly with the small manufacturing client when things go wrong. The DSAR reads like a corporate trying to reverse out of a crash without leaving tyre marks. Except big black marks across the document resemble tyre marks quite uncannily.
That is why Page is dangerous to disabled candidates. Not because it is uniquely evil. Because it is structurally incentivised to treat discrimination as a file to manage, not a harm to prevent. A recruitment agent actively discriminating? Let’s see how that works out for them. Because I’m not just growing, I’ve no intention of stopping. Find out.
Cepac’s ET3 Says ‘Not Aware’ Then Quotes Health Problems
Cepac’s Grounds of Resistance tries to build a wall around knowledge.
It says that during the agency call the claimant disclosed he had been out of work for a period related to health, but that “the Respondent was not aware of this conversation until after the Claimant raised his complaint on 8 October 2024”.
Then the same document walks you straight through the wall.
It quotes the agency’s “brief introduction” about the claimant. It reads:
“Lee is has been out of work for 12 months due to health problems but is now in a position to get back into work. Previously he was at Cummins”.
That is the contradiction in black and white. Either health context was circulating in the recruitment flow or it was not. (We KNOW it was, it was on a separate document and C.V). Cepac cannot plead ignorance with one paragraph and then reproduce an email that literally flags health problems with the next. That’s why their only path was aggression. And I like beating bullies.
This is why I call it boxed in. Cepac does not have a clean exit. I noticed ‘checkmate’ months ago. Either they’re stupid or banking on my stupidity. Both scenarios leave them stupid though.
The Disability Frame Gets Turned Into ‘Vexatious Conduct’
Here is the tactic as I see it.
A disabled litigant is pushed into short notice hearings and procedural traps. Adjustments are refused. The predictable dysregulation arrives. The opponent then waves the dysregulation around as proof of bad character.
The system rewards the party that can provoke without being seen to provoke.
And once you are labelled “conduct” the Tribunal starts treating the respondent’s actions as background noise and your reaction as the main event.
That is why the DSAR matters. It shows the mindset behind the scenes. The recruitment machine sees disability and instantly asks “what sort of man is he”. Then it Googles. Then it logs. Then it escalates. Then it pretends it is neutral.
A corporate can say “DEI” in a footer and still treat a disabled candidate as a reputational hazard to be contained.
Two Respondents Two Appetites For Risk
Cepac is small. And has a short man’s temper. It can be stubborn. It can also be fragile.
Page is big. It is FTSE. It understands brand risk. It also understands that a disability discrimination for a recruitment agent story that sticks to Google is not a “low value claim”. It is a governance problem.
That is why co respondent status matters. It changes the pain distribution.
Cepac might want to grind. Page wants to frame me, and did. See how that serves you.
So my strategy is obvious. Stop begging a one sided forum for fairness. Force the risk into the open where it belongs.
The Court Of Public Opinion Is Not A Threat It Is The Only Audit That Works
This is not a tantrum. It is a calibration.
If the Tribunal insists on treating a disability linked incident as a free standing moral failure, I will treat the paper trail as the truth source and publish accordingly.
You cannot call a candidate “serial” in private and demand saint like composure in public.
You cannot plead “not aware” and quote “health problems” in the next breath.
You cannot hide behind redactions and expect the story to die.
If Page and Cepac think they can ride this out for four months, good luck. The internet does not adjourn. It indexes.
Knife Edge
They can try for a technical knockout. They can try to win without ever testing the discrimination facts. That is the new fashion. Procedure as a blade.
But the DSAR has already done the one thing they cannot tolerate.
It shows the instinct. It shows the panic. It shows the Googling. It shows the contempt for disability framed as “risk”. The ICO are also finally dealing with it, following an apology.
So here is the deal in plain English.
You can win in a room. Or you can explain yourselves in public.
Pick one.
Lee Thompson – Founder with disclosed health problems, The Cummins Accountability Project