Every boss's worst nightmare: He's launched an astonishing 54 tribunals and lost every one - but says HE'S the victim
SOURCE:Daily Mail
Johnson, 45, is a professional victim who finds offence and blame where none exists and who, over the past decade, has lodged almost every conceivable tribunal claim.
Joseph Johnson’s CV could be dropping into the inboxes of potential employers again some time soon. He is a prolific job applicant, after all.
On his LinkedIn profile he describes himself as a ‘youth development specialist’ with ‘strong organisational and problem solving skills’ and a proven track record of ‘delivering and setting up campaigns’.
There are many other qualities he lists, but key among them, he says, is ‘an ability to inspire and motivate young people’.
So he has never been short of job offers. But here is the unvarnished truth about ‘inspirational’ Joseph Johnson for any employer who may be unaware of his background.
They should be aware that he is every boss’s nightmare – one of the country’s most vexatious complainants.
Johnson, 45, is a professional victim who finds offence and blame where none exists and who, over the past decade, has lodged almost every conceivable tribunal claim from discrimination, be it race, sex, age or disability (he has had mental health issues, apparently) to breach of contract, unfair dismissal and whistleblowing detriment.
Just about the only thing Johnson, a born-again Christian, has not made a claim for is ‘sexual orientation’ discrimination.
Joseph Johnson (pictured), a born-again Christian, has commenced legal action at least 54 times against 16 different charities, schools, local authorities and gyms but lost every single one
In all, he has commenced legal action at least 54 times against 16 different charities, schools, local authorities and gyms he worked for without succeeding in a single discrimination claim.
No current position, apart from his role in a community organisation he set up himself, is listed on LinkedIn, so Johnson could be in the job market again.
He will be undeterred by the fact that his serially litigious past, which emerged at a recent tribunal hearing, was revealed in the Daily Mail this week and still maintained that he is ‘a victim’ when we contacted him.
Today, though, we present a fuller picture of his modus operandi, the impact his behaviour had on the organisations he relentlessly pursued (‘litigation by attrition’ to quote one tribunal judge) and first-hand accounts and interviews from those who made the mistake of hiring him.
The litany of almost farcical allegations included his contention that the decision to provide him with an iPad only on 3G rather than 4G constituted an act of race discrimination by the charity he was working for at the time; that he suffered sex discrimination at a primary school, where he was a ‘manager’, even though he was appointed ahead of two female candidates; and that he only failed his probationary period with a youth group, which took him on as a holiday club manager, because of blatant age discrimination despite the fact he was then in his 30s, the same age as some of his full-time colleagues.
Baseless accusations against his employers and named individual employees, which were nevertheless expensive to defend, were sometimes accompanied by complaints to the police.
What he failed to disclose was his appalling attendance records (‘he was never around,’ said one former boss), poor ‘performance’ levels when he did turn up (he once fell asleep in a training session he was supposed to be leading) and aggressiveness if he was challenged about the way he was doing – or rather not doing – his job.
Johnson then played the victim after being sacked, typically after just a few months.
His motive was financial gain, of course, but also to punish those he ‘believed’ had treated him unfairly by making them address damaging allegations, however far-fetched.
So, regardless of the outcome, it was a ‘win, win’ situation for him.
One small charity racked up an £8,000 bill to defend themselves against Johnson's allegations
‘Mr Johnson views employment tribunal proceedings as a means to get rich fast, rather than this being somebody seeking compensation for genuine harm caused by acts of discrimination,’ was the verdict of one tribunal judge.
It might seem counter-intuitive, given that Johnson has failed 54 times to win a discrimination payout, but how many out-of-court settlements has he pocketed?
The vast majority of such complaints never reach a full tribunal hearing because, even when claims are spurious, employers know it is often cheaper in the long run to settle rather than rack up considerable legal costs fighting them.
One small charity (Newark Youth London), which chose the latter course of action, ended up with an £8,000 lawyer’s bill, while Johnson, who represented himself, walked away without having to pay a penny because costs against claimants who lose or withdraw are rarely awarded.
Only on one occasion four years ago, when he played the race card against a gym, was Johnson ordered to pay costs of around £3,000 – it is not known if he complied with the order (it was revealed he had £40,000 in a savings account).
He admitted during one of his many tribunal appearances that his motive for ‘going legal’ was also to ‘discipline’ those he felt had wronged him.
In his most recently heard case a few months ago, for example, when his multiple previous claims came to light, he offered not a shred of evidence to support his claim – for ‘sex discrimination, whistleblowing, harassment and victimisation’ – against the London Borough of Harrow after working as a manager in a residential children’s home for barely seven months.
The authority had to produce nearly 150 pages of documents for the tribunal which concluded that ‘the purpose of the claims is to cause disruption rather than to pursue genuine allegations’.
Joseph Johnson is a menace, in other words. But he is not alone.
Christian Mallon (pictured), a serial job applicant who has commenced more than 100 claims in tribunals, has also made a career out of claims for disability discrimination against businesses around the country
According to court documents, Dr Mallon – who has two properties he rents out in Scotland and a house in his native Northern Ireland – has netted £35,000 from making disability complaints.
According to court documents, Dr Mallon – who has two properties he rents out in Scotland and a house in his native Northern Ireland – has netted £35,000 from making disability complaints.
He’s brought these on the basis that his employers failed to make reasonable adjustments for his ADHD and autism diagnosis, which required him to see interview questions in advance for positions for which, in many cases, he was totally unqualified.
Critics fear the new Employment Rights Act, at a time when Britain is experiencing the biggest hiring slump in the G7, will make it easier for chancers like Johnson and Mallon, to name but two culprits, because employees will be able to claim unfair dismissal after just six months, reduced from the current two-year window, with unlimited damages available.
(Incredibly, Angela Rayner’s original plan was to give workers such rights from day one.)
Neither Johnson’s neighbours at an unassuming block of flats in Redbridge, east London, who describe him as a ‘pleasant guy’, nor a relative, who said he was a ‘good uncle’, were aware of Johnson’s claims against many, if not all, the places he has worked in recent times.
There are plenty of other sides to him, too. Born in Hackney, he attended boarding school in Nigeria before completing a degree in business economics and marketing at the University of North London.
He’s also done turns as a stand-up comic and compered open mic events at a bar in Islington, north London. But his behaviour at the organisations highlighted today was never a laughing matter.
He has also tried his hand as an author, self-publishing his autobiography Falling Short: Issues Of Uncle J, in 2020.
In it, he lists some of his earliest jobs: he was a sales manager for retailer Matalan and supervisor for bus drivers for Stagecoach.
His sense of victimhood was already well entrenched, describing the work environments at those companies as ‘horrible’ and where he gave his bosses the ‘middle finger’. In the future – instead of the ‘middle finger’ – Johnson would weaponise his grievances by exploiting the employment tribunal process.
Among his first victims was Sandra Chin, the then head teacher at Benthal Primary School in Hackney, north London, who made him ‘learning enrichment and achievement manager’ in 2014, as a role model for black boys in the classroom.
Now retired Ms Chin, incidentally, is black herself.
Sandra Chin, head teacher at Bethnal Primary School where Johnson worked, said his attendance was 'appalling' and he left her feeling 'unsafe'
One of two women who worked for him in his new role, however, complained of his ‘aggressive, abusive, inappropriate and unprofessional’ behaviour towards her which included Sellotaping hard copies of his email instructions to both her and her colleague’s computer screen in the small office they all shared.
When Ms Chin took him to task for his heavy-handed treatment, he responded with his own official complaint in an email.
It read: ‘Now taking account of my contribution to Benthal Primary School (not to blow my horn) has been nothing less than outstanding… it’s hard not for me to come to the conclusion that I am right now a victim of gender discrimination.’
Remember, Johnson was also appointed ahead of two women.
His so-called ‘outstanding contribution?’ ‘His attendance was appalling,’ Ms Chin told the Daily Mail this week.
‘He just wanted to do his own thing. Whatever I said, he would turn around and then you start to question yourself as an employer and manager.
‘At one stage he said he was going to make me suffer for what I had put him through. I felt unsafe and was looking over my shoulder and made sure I always had someone with me when I left school late in the evenings.
‘It took me a long time to get rid of him with all the local authority procedures.’
Johnson took the local authority, Hackney Council, to an employment tribunal for sex discrimination in 2018
In 2018, Johnson took the local authority, Hackney Council, to an employment tribunal for sex discrimination which – you guessed it – was rejected.
‘The claimant’s assertion in evidence, “I am one million per cent sure that a woman would not have been suspended” was fanciful,’ the panel ruled.
The following year, Johnson was up to his old tricks at the Barking & Dagenham Youth Zone.
He held the position of holiday club manager, responsible for up to eight staff, but omitted any mention of Benthal Primary in his application – and his multitude of problems at other employers were scandalously omitted for ‘data protection’ reasons.
‘That did us a disservice,’ his then line manager Zakaria Hussain told the Daily Mail.
‘He appeared to have the right credentials but it did not take long for him to be exposed.
‘He just was not performing. He seemed to think he could dictate his job, deciding what hours he would be willing to work.
'He fell asleep during one training session with all the new staff he was supposed to be managing. He did literally nothing to take his programme forward but he thought his work was satisfactory.’
While working at Barking and Dagenham Youth Zone, Johnson 'fell asleep during one training session', his manager said
Johnson, along with other colleagues, was in his 30s at the time, but accused them, and the charity, of age and race discrimination after being let go, which ‘deeply affected the people he accused’.
‘The internal time his tribunal took up was so excessive,’ said Mr Hussain.
‘I remember four or five boxes of documents being delivered to my house when our focus should have been on the community and young people.’
After a five-day hearing in 2020, a panel at East London Employment Tribunal found Johnson’s claims to be unfounded.
It ruled his evidence was ‘incredible,’ noting: ‘We gained the impression that the Claimant believed that if he perceived, and then expressed his belief that he was being discriminated against, then it must be true.’
It was a familiar story at Newark Youth London, which runs a number of clubs for youngsters across east London and where Johnson was a manager.
‘We had an office that was easy for him to get to in Newham, near where he lived, but he wasn’t showing up in the mornings,’ said Kamrul Islam, his former line manager.
‘We asked him to copy us in on his email correspondence with schools but he would just say that he had done it.
After a five-day hearing in 2020, a panel at East London Employment Tribunal (pictured) found Johnson’s claims of age and race discrimination to be unfounded
‘When I asked him to come and meet me, he made so many excuses. He would say that I was taking him away from his work, but he was not doing any work.’
Johnson lasted four months before being dismissed in April 2023. At the inevitable tribunal hearing the following year, where he sought £70,000 for injury to his feelings, it transpired he had a second full-time job at another youth group.
Johnson made multiple discrimination claims against both organisations. A panel judge called his claims against Newark ‘completely fanciful’, concluding that Johnson had ‘acted in a manner that was unreasonable and vexatious and abusing the tribunal process’.
Mr Islam added: ‘We are a very small charity and the trustees have limited time. We are not used to anything like this. We successfully fought him but it cost us a lot of time and around £8,000 on lawyers that could have been spent on youth activities.’
Joseph Johnson’s current tally is at least 54 claims against 16 organisations – and counting – because there is nothing, it seems, to stop him from launching more.