A senior British Council official has won his unfair dismissal case over claims he groped a female embassy worker at a party in Italy.
Paul Sellers, who was head of the British Council in Italy, was accused of drunkenly kissing the staff member on the lips and “stroking” her breasts with both hands as she left a Christmas party hosted at his flat in Rome.
Sellers argued that he had done no more than give her a kiss on both cheeks in the traditional Italian greeting or farewell, known as “saluto”. He also reported that his wife and children were next to him at the time.
The female employee, who is referred to as “ZZ” in the judgment, complained of sexual harassment and so followed an investigation into his conduct, which ultimately ended in him being dismissed from the British Council in May 2019.
The employment tribunal concluded that the investigation was severely flawed, however. There were instances where evidence was ignored, including six witness accounts suggesting that the alleged incident had not occurred.
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The tribunal heard that Kate Ewart-Biggs, deputy chief executive of the British Council and the person heading the investigation, had taken a “narrow view” of the incident based on ZZ’s account rather than the full circumstances surrounding it.
Ewart-Biggs told the tribunal that she found the allegation to be true, and she was “satisfied that an appropriate investigation had been conducted”, and that the “complainant’s evidence was credible and consistent”. In this context, the appropriate sanction was dismissal, she added.
Sellers appealed the decision, which was followed up with a further investigation. The tribunal concluded that in this follow-up “there appeared to be little attempt to clarify exactly where the incident took place”, or to investigate why text messages sent by ZZ to friends following the alleged incident did not refer to the sexual assault.
The appeal was not upheld and the dismissal maintained. Further evidence submitted later in 2019 said there was “limited physical contact” between ZZ and Sellers and confirmed it had taken place in the view of a number of other guests. Requests for a further appeal were turned down.
In his conclusion, Employment Judge Hodgson said “this is a misconduct case where the conduct in question is disputed”, and referred to numerous flaws into how the allegations were investigated and evidence collected.
“In this case, the investigation is characterised by serious oversights and unreasonable assumptions. No reasonable employer would have failed to seek the relevant contemporaneous documentation, or to explore the circumstances of the alleged assault, or to seek relevant evidence from witnesses to the alleged incident,” he added.
Sellers’ unfair dismissal claim was upheld, and a remedy hearing will follow. The British Council has been approached for comment.
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