The former head of employment at City firm Rosenblatt has been criticised by his opponents for his approach to an employment tribunal in which he brings claims of racial discrimination, unfair dismissal and breach of contract.

The tribunal heard closing submissions last week in the case of Noel Deans, who was head of employment until 2020, before reserving judgment. RBL Law Limited, former chief executive Nicola Foulston, founder and senior partner Ian Rosenblatt and director and compliance officer Anthony Field are named as respondents.

Richard Leiper KC for RBL Law, Rosenblatt and Field, said: ‘From April 2018 to his resignation email there is no concrete event that the claimant can point to, other than that Mr Rosenblatt did not have time for him. But in the claimant’s words “I was trusted by Ian before my protected disclosure in June 2019”.’

Leiper told the tribunal that Deans ‘had no proper basis for his complaints’. He added the allegations and alleged protected disclosure were ‘not honestly made’.

Leiper said the alleged protected disclosure was Deans ‘thrashing about because he was not being trusted to see documents that others, a small group…were able to see’. He added: ‘Another knee jerk reaction on his part. He had no belief of any likely breach or actual breach. Even if he did, it was not a reasonable belief and he had no belief he was doing anything in the public interest.’

Dr James Bickford Smith, for Foulston, said: ‘This case is hopeless. What one sees in fact is that the [Foulston] was a stronger backer of the claimant up until pretty much his extraordinary resignation email. One sees no evidence to support a case of systematic racial discrimination against the claimant.

‘It is extraordinary that someone who does not hold back from making those kinds of allegations should have no explanation at all for this tribunal why he never made any written complaint about alleged racial discrimination until his resignation letter on February 14 2020.’

Discussing the 2018 dinner at Rosenblatt’s house, Beckford-Smith said: ‘The tribunal will form a very negative view of what the second respondent said on that occasion.’ He said Foulston’s remark was of ‘deep regret to her’ but it did not amount to a case of direct discrimination.

Deans, who represented himself, told the tribunal of the ‘sea change that occurred’ after his alleged protected disclosure. He said: ‘Before this, the issue of race was constant, it was at times insidious and on others occasions obvious.’

‘However following my protected disclosure, the sea change was unmistakeable…it is this sea change which leads me to conclude that my protected disclosure…increased the strength of the current that I was having to grapple with…and that treatment was unbearable.’

He told the tribunal: ‘Everything that happened from the moment I arrived until the moment I left was related to my race. My protected disclosure related to a belief that it was likely that there would be evidence suppression and my other concerns about my duty to the court. I had to say something because there is no way I, as a solicitor, could ignore the likely breach of a rule.’

Deans added: ‘But when it came to race, I behaved in the way that people from protected groups behave. People from protected groups do not complain about incidents. They suffer. Their lack of complaint does not make the alleged incident acceptable or less serious.’