Mr Homer was 51 when he started working for the Police National Legal Database as an in-house legal adviser. At that time, a law degree (which Mr Homer didn't have) wasn't a requirement of the job.
Eleven years later, a new three-tier grading structure was introduced. Staff couldn't hit the top grade without having a law degree. Mr Homer's option would have been to study law part-time which would have taken him four years. But this was in the days before the default retirement age was abolished and he would have been due to retire before finishing his studies.
Mr Homer claimed indirect age discrimination; he had been subject to a provision, criterion or practice which put people of his age group at a disadvantage compared with other people.
This argument failed at the Employment Appeal Tribunal and at the Court of Appeal. It was the fact that he was about to retire which caused him the disadvantage, and not his age. So he should be compared with people who were coming to the end of their employment not necessarily through retirement.
The Supreme Court took a different view. Retirement directly relates to age, it said, so Mr Homer had been indirectly discriminated against. But the employer has some hope: it might still be possible for it to justify the discriminatory requirement as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. That issue is now with the tribunal to decide.
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