UK Police can Appeal in Police Recruit Case

{LONDON] - A police force has won the right to appeal to the House of Lords against a court ruling that it acted unlawfully in refusing to recruit a male-to-female transsexual.

The Court of Appeal ruled in November that, for employment purposes, the transsexual was a woman and the Chief Constable of the West Yorkshire force could not resist her application to join.

The woman, referred to as Miss A, underwent sex-change surgery in 1996 and now has no outward male characteristics.

She successfully completed a police assessment course, but her application to join the force was rejected in 1998.

The transsexual was told the force operated a blanket ban on transsexuals because there were difficulties when they were asked to carry out intimate body searches and therefore could never be fully operational.

In 1999, an employment tribunal upheld Miss A's complaint of sexual discrimination.

Later the same year, the Employment Appeal Tribunal found that, although it was discrimination, it was not unlawful because the woman was legally a male and could not be asked to carry out searches on women.

A committee of Law Lords has now decided that the police should be allowed to appeal to the House of Lords.

Press & Journal Saturday March 22 2003