The claimant, a serving police constable, took Shared Parental Leave (SPL) for just over 3 months in 2015 after his wife gave birth to their second son. Had he been a female police constable on maternity leave, he would have been entitled to be paid his full salary for the period over which he took SPL.

The claimant's case, in a nutshell, was that he was unlawfully discriminated against as a male because the rate of enhanced maternity pay was higher than the rate of SPL pay. The EAT analysed how the criteria for indirect sex discrimination was tested in order to reveal a comparative disadvantage. In this case that disadvantage was SPL being paid at a lesser rate