The claimant in this England and Wales Court of Appeal case had previously settled a claim of sex discrimination against the University. She raised claims after this, alleging victimisation as a result of her having put forward the earlier claim. In particular, she argued the grievance procedure was flawed. The E&W Court of Appeal found that the university was acting on their lawyers' advice and no correction to the grievance investigation would have changed the outcomes.

What is of interest in Ireland and elsewhere is Elias LJ's comments on what constitutes a detriment in equality law and how a detriment is almost always present when an act of discrimination takes place:

"In fact it seems to me - as it did to Underhill LJ as he said when granting permission to appeal - that although the concepts of less favourable treatment and detriment are distinct, there will be very few, if any, cases where less favourable treatment will be meted out and yet it will not result in a detriment. This is because being subject to an act of discrimination which causes, or is reasonably likely to cause, distress or upset will reasonably be perceived as a detriment by the person subject to the discrimination even if there are no other adverse consequences. That is perhaps more starkly the position in cases of discrimination on race or sex grounds where it can be readily seen that the act of discrimination of itself causes injury to feelings. But similar reasoning applies to victimisation discrimination. This is also an important protection for an employee or ex-employee, and a real and burning sense of injustice or unfairness may be experienced by someone who is discriminated against on this ground. It is perhaps possible that there may be evidence showing that in fact in a particular case the claimant did not suffer any sense of grievance or injustice notwithstanding less favourable treatment, but the normal inference would surely be that he or she did."

"...if the appellant were able to establish that she had been treated less favourably in the way in which the procedures were applied, and the reason was that she was being victimised for having lodged a sex discrimination claim, she would have a legitimate sense of injustice which would in principle sound in damages. The fact that the outcome of the procedure would not have changed will be relevant to any assessment of any compensation, but it does not of itself defeat the substantive victimisation discrimination claim."
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2015/52.html