In Heafield v Times Newspaper Limited the EAT held that an employment tribunal had been right to reject a Catholic sub-editor's religious harassment claim, which arose when his line manager shouted a comment across the newsroom about the Pope that contained an expletive. The Times was working on a story concerning an allegation that the Pope, in a previous role, had protected a paedophile priest. As the print deadline approached, a senior sub-editor, shouted across the newsroom: “Can anybody tell me what's happening to the f*****g Pope?” When nobody responded, he repeated the question, again raising his voice. The tribunal was plainly right to find that, to the extent that the sub-editor felt his dignity to be violated or that an adverse environment had been created for harassment purposes, it was not a reasonable reaction to his manager's comment. The manager's comment was not ill-intentioned or anti-Catholic. A reasonable person in the sub-editor's position would have understood that and made allowances for it.

Comment: Where in harassment cases, any offence caused is unintentional, the law makes it clear the “effect” would only amount to violating a person’s dignity, or creating an unpleasant working environment, if, having regard to all the circumstances, it could reasonably be considered as having that effect, taking into account the claimant’s perception. As another division of the EAT stated in Richmond Pharmacology v Dhaliwal, (i) dignity is not necessarily violated by things said or done which are trivial or transitory, particularly if it is clear any offence was unintended; and (ii) while it is important to protect employees from harassment, it is also important not to encourage a culture of hypersensitivity or the imposition of legal liability in respect of every unfortunate phrase.