A marketing manager has won a claim for sex-based harassment and unfair dismissal after her manager endorsed degrading remarks made by Jeremy Clarkson against Meghan Markle.
Mrs Selkin worked at agricultural machinery distributor Opico, the tribunal heard, where most female staff are employed in administrative functions. Selkin claimed that there was a “sexist culture” at the company that began with its owner James Woolway and extended downwards.
There had been some issues that had arisen with Selkin and her “interpersonal skills”, the tribunal heard, and she had been issued with a letter of concern by HR. A second issue arose with one of her reports, and Opico consulted its HR advisory service about next steps, but she kept her job.
Sex-based harassment
Selkin told the tribunal that there had been a number of occasions when she had witnessed sexist language and behaviour, including an email sent by the owner about the marketing department suggesting that they “just leave the witches to stirring the cauldron and give them the ingredients they need”.
On another occasion, a manager sent a WhatsApp message to the work chat group with a video showing two options of how an away day could be sent on a homemade disc. The only way the disc in the picture could land was on the words “going shooting”.
Selkin emailed the owner the next Monday claiming this was “very much a boys’ club joke” and “sexist”, adding that it had triggered her anxiety.
Woolway forwarded the email to a colleague saying he “did not see an issue with it – I would laugh just as much if it was a joke about a girl’s spa day”.
The tribunal heard of multiple other messages seen on the group including jokes about vaginas, suggestions that women can’t understand car dashboard signals and poking fun at overweight women.
Two incidents occurred at an industry dinner in January 2023. First, that sales director Charles Bedforth made a reference to a controversial tweet sent by Jeremy Clarkson where he had suggested Meghan Markle be paraded naked through the streets (as depicted in a scene in Game of Thrones), saying he “didn’t see anything wrong” with it.
Secondly, Bedforth referred to an employee of one of Opico’s clients as Selkin’s boyfriend after she had once made a remark about him being “dishy”. The tribunal did not find this to be a “playful exchange” but an unwanted comment.
Later in 2023, Selkin was asked to take down a printout of a tweet she had on her office noticeboard about the decision to overturn the historical Roe v Wade ruling in the US that legalised abortion.
It said: “Stop abortion at the source. Vasectomies are reversible. Make every young man have one. When he is deemed financially and emotionally fit to be a father, it will be reversed. What’s that? Did the idea of regulating a man’s body make you uncomfortable?”
A colleague complained about a conversation Selkin had been having about whether men should have forced vasectomies that could only be reversed with the approval of a woman, and that she had been loud and defensive. The same colleague later raised a formal grievance against her.
A disciplinary hearing took place in March 2023, after which Selkin wrote a long letter claiming she had not known the meeting was “anything other than information”, that the HR representative had not been impartial in taking notes, and that she had not been listened to or questioned properly.
The disciplinary outcome report found that Selkin had “on the balance of probabilities” imposed her ideas around male vasectomies on her colleagues, and that this met the criteria for unlawful harassment – a finding the tribunal deemed “surprising”.
After the disciplinary found her guilty of gross misconduct, Woolway took the decision to dismiss Selkin. No outcome meeting was held and she was informed over the phone that she had been dismissed.
She appealed the dismissal but was informed there was not enough evidence to overturn the original decision.
The tribunal upheld Selkin’s claim for unfair dismissal, ruling that Opico did not have sufficient information to “form a reasonable belief on reasonable grounds that the claimant was guilty of the allegations against her” and that the decision to dismiss “fell outside the band of reasonable responses”.
It also upheld a claim of sex-based harassment based on several of the incidents brought up in the tribunal, but not one for direct sex discrimination, as it was decided that Selkin’s gender played no part in the decision to dismiss her.
A compensation hearing will take place at a later date.
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