Avoiding discrimination claims when making redundancies

Eversheds Legal Services Ltd v De Belin serves as a reminder of the dangers of trying to avoid discrimination claims from a particular class of employee when making redundancies. Eversheds was making redundancies and within a selection pool was a female employee who was absent on maternity leave at the time of redundancy selection (and had been for most of the year). Presumably to try to avoid a claim from that employee Eversheds inflated the score that was given to her. However, a male employee who was made redundant successfully claimed that this approach was discriminatory against men.