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.

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.

A preliminary hearing in Watford heard he served in the British Army from 1996 until 2018, achieved the rank of Warrant Officer and became a flying instructor graduate of the Central Flying School.

Between 2014 to 2018, Mr Coverley served with the RAF as attached personnel, holding the position of Lead Army Pilot.

In 2017, it was heard he “expressed an interest” in joining the RAF, but also applied for a civilian job as a backup, for when his Army service came to an end.

He was successful with the latter and joined Ascent Flight Training, which is a company that provides military training to the RAF through civilian instructors.

‘Positive conversations’

In 2020, he then 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.

Discrimination denied

The tribunal heard that following the resignation of Group Captain Nicholl an internal investigation took place in October 2022 to find out whether there had been “positive acts of discrimination” since 2020.

In February last year, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston appeared in front of the parliamentary defence select committee, where he denied any discrimination had taken place.

The hearing was told a damning internal report by the RAF was published in June 2023, which included the following: “The Defence Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2018-2030 set the goal of increasing representation of underrepresented groups at all levels.”

The report also referred to “specific targets” having been set in terms of percentages of recruitment of women and ethnic minorities.

After its publication, Mr Coverley began to research the matter himself, the tribunal heard.

Full hearing

In July 2023, he filed a “service complaint” with the armed forces internal system.

However, he was told its complaint process “only applied to serving or former personnel in respect of complaints that arose within their service period”.

Mr Coverley therefore decided there was “no point” pursuing his complaint and instead started legal proceedings against the MoD.

Considering whether his claims could proceed, Employment Judge Samantha Moore ruled Mr Coverley had not known about the possible discrimination until June 2023 and allowed his claims to proceed.

She added: “I find it is just and equitable to extend time in respect of [Mr Coverley’s] complaints relating to both his 2020 and his 2022 applications, which means the tribunal does have jurisdiction to hear them and they will now proceed to a full hearing.”

The full hearing will take place at a later date.

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