Sainsbury’s has been instructed by an employment tribunal to pay £60,000 to a female worker after a male colleague repeatedly swore at her.
Deborah Oziel has been granted compensation for injury to feelings and sexual discrimination over a number of situations that occurred since 2021 involving her colleague Matthew Henderson, The Telegraph reported.
It is understood that one incident saw Henderson calling Oziel, who had been working at a Sainsbury’s store in East Finchley, north London, since 2016, a “f***ing bitch” after she had spoken to him about not performing his assigned duties.
The judge said: “The term used by Matthew Henderson towards the claimant was ‘bitch’, which we find is primarily used against women, and even if used against men, it still has a sex-related offensive element.”
A different incident involved Henderson telling a customer and another female employee to “f*** off”, while he told a male worker on another occasion that he planned to purchase a fake gun to intimidate Oziel.
According to The Telegraph, Oziel was blamed for the mismanagement of Henderson at first. However, these claims were dismissed by the tribunal after inquiries into her conduct were “fundamentally flawed” and based on unsupported claims around Henderson’s duties.
It is understood Henderson was not asked to be a witness during the trial after Sainsbury’s thought that providing testimony would place excessive stress on him.
Following the first situation involving swearing, Henderson said that he had Asperger’s syndrome, which is a condition forming part of the autism spectrum, characterised by repetitive patterns of behaviours, difficulties with social interaction and non-verbal communication.
However, the judge said it was “entirely unclear what the impact of Asperger’s syndrome is on him and its relevance to the issues in this case”. They added that there was not much to support the claim that Henderson was unfit to provide testimony.
Successful in her claims for unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination, Oziel was awarded £59,333.14.
A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “This case does not reflect the great care that is taken to safeguard our colleagues and the policies we have in place to support that. We are reviewing this complex and sensitive case to make sure we learn from it and do better by all our colleagues in the future.”
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