A woman negotiator is claiming constructive dismissal from her estate agency bosses who reduced her hours after she took time off work because of stress triggered by sexual harassment.
Charlotte Lloyd, 35, says she was sexually harassed by a colleague, Michael Keilthy.
She claimed he called her “sugar t*ts” and made lewd gestures and suggestions.
Mrs Lloyd complained about him and Keilthy was suspended and then dismissed from Callaways estate agents in Worthing, West Sussex.
Six months later, Mrs Lloyd says her work hours were cut after she took five days off for stress. She claimed this was triggered when she saw Keilthy at the staff Christmas party.
He had turned up after booking himself a table at the same restaurant, on December 18. On December 23, she was signed off from work with stress.
Managers at the firm decided to reduce her hours without her knowing, and on her return to work on January 6, 2015, she was told she would be changing to part-time.
In a witness statement she said: “This was decided for my ‘welfare’ but nobody consulted me or my doctor about this.”
Mrs Lloyd was later invited to re-apply for her old role as a full-time sales negotiator. She is claiming this was unfair, as she had only been ill because of Keilthy’s behaviour and no other employee had had to apply in this way.
She has now taken her former employers to a tribunal at Southampton.
The tribunal heard that there had been a culture of accepting Keilthy’s behavior, which Mrs Lloyd felt was targeted, upsetting and humiliating.
She said: “It was impacting my confidence and making the work environment very unpleasant. He was not like this to others.”
She said that he dismissed his behaviour by saying: “Whoops! Sorry! That was a bit rude, wasn’t it?”
In some parts of the country women who are called sugar t**ts would take that as a compliment…. 🙂
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Ha! (So would some men!)
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That sort of attitude is part of the problem. The ‘you ought to be grateful that I fancy you’ justification for conduct which women find embarrassing and humiliating.
Maybe some women might consider it a compliment (depending on the attractiveness of the bloke in question) but that’s no justification for carrying on when it is clear that they don’t like it.
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Rather a crass comment and one often said and thought by rednecks, sad to see American bad ways and ideas have crept into surrey
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I think you’re all rather missing the point. Comments like this will always be made by men and women. They can be handled and dealt with. The issue here is how the employer handled it. I can’t actually believe that they are going to court with it. So obviously in the wrong that they might as well throw some money at their solicitors and write her a nice cheque to now. We’re in a sad litigious society where suing someone is the norm. That is the worst part of American culture that we’ve imported. What happened to having a good row and sorting out your problems before they became a work related stress issue. Unless this isn’t the whole story. Wouldn’t be the first time that the press only reported the sensational bits.
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You can google the whole story was in Telegraph, Mail, etc yesterday,
They have left out the part where he was mock sha**ing the desk, make references to pleasure her husband.
Also why should she be put on part time hours? – Thats the real story here.
It is a unscrupulous business putting their needs ahead of the employees, they like the rest of us business owners have a responsibility to provide a safe working environment. Just because she has been off with stress (through harassment at work) you cant look to reduce her hours on the hope she moves on.
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You can also see his antics haven’t dented his career!
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Looks like just a title, 13 properties on the books in nothing to brag about.
To be fair to the guy he paid the price in losing his job.
This story is more about the way a company tried to force out a member of staff. I am a family run business and yes it would put strain on my business if a member of staff at Christmas when no doubt we are on skeleton staff took time off. But reducing her hours as a punishment in the hope she would move on and then trying to disguise it as “Doing her a favour” is just wrong.
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…..and seemingly into a better one.
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But if the company had already suspended and then sacked the individual, I can understand why they would feel that six months later when the chancer wangled himself in to another contact, I assume at no fault of the company, the employee claiming that this triggered the need for an additional 5 days off for stress, over Xmas, looks more than a little like taking advantage. I assume they wouldn’t have let it go to tribunal and would have settled unless they believed they had a strong case themselves.
It may well transpire that the way they dealt with it was wrong both morally and legally, but I bet they were at their wits end too. Dealing with staff is such a challenging part of running a business, especially small businesses without personnel departments. The employer has to constantly be thinking of everyone’s welfare while the employee only has to worry about their own. It’s not easy, I have some sympathy.
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Something isn’t right about this whole sorry affair. She see’s him at a christmas party in a public place and he has booked himself into the same venue on the Friday18th December and I guess not part of the event. This is apparently many months after he has been correctly sacked for his behaviour. She gets signed off for stress on the Wednesday 23rd returning on the 6th January! It would be telling to know what the business managers were exchanging in their emails and it would be a problem if they assumed she needed a part time role if there is no due process on the lead up to that decision!! Did anything happen on the night or was this after the event. I shall await the judgement on whether this is constructive dismissal or opportunism for someone
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The easiest way to deal with that and anyone like it; record their steamy desk love action and stick it on youtube. £4.99 will buy a discreet USB surveillance camera from Ebay. They simply plug into a USB port and you can stream live or edited highlights straight to the internet. Get the partners permission and they might even agree to the potentially high traffic extension to the firm’s website. (Not sure RICS will sanction that)
A useful link for anyone suffering that sort of behaviour http://ebay.eu/1UaNF7H
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Did David Beckham ever sue anyone for calling him Golden Balls? Maybe he should, it’s never about the money just the principals!! Yeh right!!!!
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She is not suing regarding the harassment!
She is suing as the company reduced her hours on the hope she moved on as they obviously took offence to her taking time off with stress through he harassment.
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Doesn’t this come under the get away with it title of Banter?
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The law is a complete and utter a$$.
The entire process is heavily weighted in favour of a business, whether it be a good reputable business defending the actions of a misguided and disgruntled employee or a business that has so basically and openly flouted every employment law known to (wo)man.
Either business is entitled to string out a defence, but knowing that the business you are squaring up to is legally acknowledged to have been in the wrong from the outset and can hide behind our contrived laws is absurd. I’ve witnessed and advised on cases where you run a two pronged legal attack. You have the “official tribunal route” with its strict rules and regulations and the “without prejudice route” which is say and do what the hell you want, nothing matters here and nothing sticks route; and both of these run in tandem in a race to the finish.
Even when a business is widely and legally acknowledged to be so far off the mark and where its sole intention and purpose is to destroy the person making the claim, emotionally, financially and personally right up to the eleventh hour; they are entitled to do so. And so they will, just to see if they can break this person before reaching a tipping point where there are then legally required to face a tribunal. Up to that point there is no legal requirement to do anything. No leverage, no legal way to get a business to comply or engage in grown up conversation until you start to throw chunks of money at lawyers. It is a farce. It is bully boy tactics 101 and is currently seen as acceptable within our legal system.
A guy humping a desk in plain sight of a female colleague suggests that he and employment law have the same confidence problem. They are both bad for women, become limp with opportunity before end up as nothing more than a pile of spent organic matter on a table.
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A: Calling anyone in a work place sugar t1t$ or whatever is inappropriate and sackable
B: If you want to get rid of a negotiator, you don’t reduce their hours, you simply performance manage them (if they pass this then you don’t get rid of them you give them a pay rise)
C: Whilst I feel the lady has had to deal with a difficult situation I suspect there is more to it, perhaps she finds many aspects of her position with the company difficult to deal with and this is all culminating in the wrong person in the wrong job.
Any hoo !
If my wife hasn’t cooked me bleedin diner when I get home there’ll be hell to pay. Mark my words.
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