A chef who won his claim for sexual harassment after his boss sang the suggestive refrain ‘Let’s do it’ has been awarded £79,100 at the employment tribunal.
A tribunal judge who last summer ruled that the lines from comedian Victoria Wood’s Ballad of Barry and Freda, amounted to sexual harassment, has now published a remedy judgment awarding the claimant £35,700 in damages plus £34,000 for injury to feelings. The respondents will also have to pay £9,500 in interest.
In October 2021, Mr Nunns began his role as head chef at the Windermere Manor Hotel, which is owned by the first respondent, SBH Windermere, and managed by Starboard Hotels.
Nunns alleged that Mr Wilson, the Lake District hotel’s general manager and the second respondent in the claim, made inappropriate comments and sexual references to food. He gave an example of when the claimant held a cucumber and Wilson had made a suggestive look and said: “Do you need some time alone dear?”
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The claimant also referred to Wilson faking an orgasm when eating food he had prepared, followed by a hug, a kiss on the forehead, and what Nunns described as “mildly dramatised dry humping”.
Nunns claimed that Wilson engaged in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature over subsequent months in a number of ways including frequent long hugs, and touching his thighs, bottom and nipple.
He also stated that in January 2022, Wilson sang The Ballad of Barry and Freda – Wood’s comic song about a sexually frustrated wife and her intimacy-fearing husband – in front of him. During the song, Wilson attempted eye contact with Nunns and made gestures.
After raising a grievance and unsuccessfully appealing its outcome, the claimant resigned by email in June 2022, referring to how he had been treated since coming forward about what he described as a “string of sexual assaults” he underwent during his time working at the hotel.
Nunns said he had been continuously treated unacceptably and therefore felt forced to resign. He also made a complaint to the police about Wilson, but no charges resulted.
In the tribunal judgment, employment judge Phil Allen said that someone singing a song in a work environment would not normally amount to unlawful harassment. “The song which is the subject of the allegation is about someone propositioning someone else for sex,” he explained.
“The tribunal accepted that the song was sung in the way evidenced by the claimant, with particular emphasis being placed upon the words repeated regularly throughout the song of ‘let’s do it’ and those words being accompanied by eye contact and disconcerting gestures towards the claimant.
“The second respondent singing the song and singing it in the way which it has been found he did, was considered in the context of the other harassment which the tribunal found had occurred. The tribunal accepted that the song, and what was emphasised in it, took on a very different tone in the light of the events.”
The ruling added: “It was clear from the claimant’s evidence that the song being sung to him in that way with the relevant emphasis, had the effect of violating the claimant’s dignity and creating a degrading, humiliating and offensive environment for him.”
The Manchester employment tribunal found that the claimant was subjected to unlawful harassment of a sexual nature by the respondents in a number of the ways alleged, but not all. A claim for unauthorised deductions from wages did not succeed.
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This article was first published on 17 July 2023 and updated on 30 April 2024 following the remedy judgment.
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