In Mr C G v Asda Stores Limited an employee of Asda has been awarded £29,465.88, including £18,500 for injury to feelings by the London South employment tribunal after enduring repeated sex discrimination following an assault by a coworker.
Mr. CG, employed as a checkout operator, suffered a series of incidents where he was kicked by a colleague. Despite reporting these incidents to his manager, no action was taken by Asda to address his complaints. The tribunal found that Asda failed to investigate, interview witnesses, or provide feedback to Mr. CG.
The tribunal ruled that Asda’s response would likely have been different if Mr. CG were female and the assailant male. It concluded that Asda mishandled the situation by neglecting to take the assaults seriously, delaying investigations, and mismanaging the grievance process.
On the question of not taking the alleged assaults seriously, employment judge Heath said that “on our findings, nothing was done by the respondent in the face of an allegation of an assault”, and that “there appear to have been no efforts to separate [Mr CG] and Ms A”.
Moreover, they said it was clear that “nothing happened until hearing gossip in the canteen prompted the claimant to escalate matters in June 2019” and that, ultimately, “we have little difficulty accepting that the claimant’s complaints were not taken seriously”.
The judge continued: “By taken seriously, we mean given a priority that their content merited, with action taken to address them in an appropriate manner. This action could have taken a number of forms but may well have included investigating whether informal action might be appropriate, informing the claimant of the relevant policies and procedures for resolving his complaint, referring the matter to HR or more senior management, exploring and, if appropriate, initiating a disciplinary investigation.
“It is difficult to say what might have been the most appropriate approach in these particular circumstances, but it is easy to say that the respondent took the wrong approach by doing nothing.”
He added: “We further accept that the respondent subjected the claimant to a detriment by not taking his complaint seriously in this time period. This was not simply an unjustified sense of grievance; the claimant was entitled to feel that his welfare and safety were not being accorded any significance by his employer.”
The court found that the sex of the alleged perpetrator was “a material factor” in the failures of the case.
“It is appropriate to compare Mr CG’s complaint with the hypothetical situation of how the respondent would have treated a woman having made the complaint that a person of the opposite sex had done these things to her.”
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