A hospital pharmacy worker has won a tribunal case over her claim she was subject to sex-related harassment and body shaming in contravention of section 26 of the 2010 Equality Act.
The respondent, King’s College NHS Hospital Trust, was also ruled to be in breach of contract when it dismissed Levinna Ola without notice.
Ms Ola’s claims over the Trust’s failure to pay accrued holiday pay and dismissal for making a protected disclosure were not accepted by the tribunal. Her complaint over sex discrimination under section 19 of the Equality Act was also dismissed.
King’s College claimed the claimant was dismissed for gross misconduct.
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This came about because Ms Ola had been sent home to change her outfit after allegedly breaching the NHS trust’s dress code that banned revealing clothing. The tribunal was told, however, that when Ola started working at the trust in 2020, she initially wore “smart blouses and tops and trousers”.
Ms Ola claimed she had been subject to comments about her clothing at work that had left her feeling “traumatised, embarrassed and degraded” and said she had made a formal complaint about them.
A manager, Selina Quainoo, informed Ms Ola that colleagues had complained that they “did not like her style of dressing”.
The tribunal heard evidence that the same process would have taken place had a male member of staff attended work in clothes that did not comply with the trust’s dress code.
However, it then emerged during the hearing that a technician and another male member of staff who wore jeans had only been “spoken to” and not sent home.
The judge, Christine Macey, said that the comments related to Ola’s sex. “It is more likely for a woman to be subjected to comments about her body shape, whether that be a reference to her height or weight,” she said.
The assistant was ultimately summarily dismissed for failing to complete dispensary logs and comply with management instructions. Judge Macey found that because there was a lack of information and evidence in the investigation report about the alleged misconduct “it was wrongly categorised as gross misconduct” and concluded that the Trust was not entitled to dismiss the claimant summarily and should have given six weeks’ notice in writing of the termination of her employment.
The tribunal went on to find that her boss’s comments amounted to sex-related harassment, that Ola’s dignity had been “violated” and that she had been “body shamed”.
Compensation will be determined at a later hearing.
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