A black African sonographer who was threatened with dismissal and the termination of her visa sponsorship if she did not clean the clinic, has won more than £33,000 for racial harassment and discrimination at an employment tribunal.
Ms Dilibe, who had been recruited from Nigeria to work at Window to the Womb in Swansea, initially received positive feedback after joining the company in March 2021, but signs of tension began to emerge in the summer of that year.
In July 2021, Dilibe had a disagreement with scan assistant Ms Luporini-Lewis about a baby’s heartbeat. After the scan, she met with her manager, scan assistant Ms Cartwright, to discuss the case, but they disagreed on which images should be sent to the clinical lead for review.
The claimant felt that Cartwright – who unlike Dilibe was not medically-qualified – should not have sought to override her judgment and had been dismissive of her expertise.
Cartwright allegedly said she did not like the claimant’s “attitude”, and was unhappy about her not following her directions refusing to do general cleaning around the clinic including vacuuming – tasks that are not typically part of a sonographer’s role.
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At a meeting in August 2021, which involved Dilibe, Cartwright and clinical lead Ms Walton, it was recorded that there were no concerns with the claimant’s scanning abilities. However, after this meeting, another clinical lead Ms Clewes was asked to review allegedly poor images that were produced by the claimant. Dilibe asked for further training from Ms Clewes.
The claimant’s probation period was extended, with the company raising concerns about her 2D scanning abilities and communication with team members. The employment tribunal noted that neither of the clinical leads were consulted about the extension to her probation and that they had not raised concerns about the 2D images.
Director Mr Woodcock allegedly told Dilibe that she had been disobedient by refusing to do general cleaning. Dilibe suggested to the tribunal that she felt this was the real reason her probation had been extended.
In an email to Walton and Clewes in October 2021, Cartwright suggested there was a smell of body odour in the scan room on most days, which inferred that she was complaining about the claimant’s smell.
A form produced following a probation meeting in November 2021 showed that the company felt Dilibe needed to improve her “attitude [and] insubordination towards other staff” and body odour. It also criticised her for refusing to vacuum the clinic because she said it was not her responsibility.
Her probation was extended again after this meeting, with the letter raising three conduct issues: personal hygiene, negative attitude to authority and her refusal to carry out cleaning duties.
The claimant had been given no opportunity to address any body odour issues before the probation review. She claimed that this could have been because the company had turned off the air conditioning, the smell of certain chemicals in the scan room, or hair products used by African women that her colleagues might have been unfamiliar with.
The tribunal found that colleagues’ claims that the claimant’s body odour was so offensive that people could not stand to be in a room with her were untrue and that no proper investigation into the cause of the odour had been carried out.
Dilibe claimed that Woodcock told her to do the cleaning because her visa was sponsored by the company and that he would decide what the role of the sonographer was.
The tribunal’s judgment says: “The natural inference from this comment was two-fold – first, that the claimant, if she did not comply and do general cleaning, faced revocation of her sponsorship; and second, that it did not matter what the claimant’s role officially was as she would be required to undertake any task chosen by [Woodcock] because she was a
sponsored employee.
“The tribunal found that it was more likely than not that [Woodcock] did threaten the claimant with dismissal or extension
of her probation period if she did not change her position immediately regarding cleaning. This was effectively what the probation review form said; at its core, it was mainly focussed on general cleaning by the claimant.”
The employment tribunal, sitting in Cardiff, found that the company’s repeated requests for Dilibe to clean the clinic amounted to harassment because of her race.
“The tribunal does not consider that a white Australian sonographer on a Tier 2 visa would have been treated in this way,” the judge said.
Dilibe sought to take 22 days annual leave in December 2021, but this was refused by the company as it felt this period was too long. She amended it to nine days but this was also refused as it was the company’s busiest time of year and she had not given four weeks’ notice as required.
She resigned from the organisation in December 2021, complaining that this was due to “unfavourable working conditions which I am no longer able to cope with”. However, she claimed the company and Woodcock attempted to intimidate her into staying with the organisation and demanded that she pay more than £5,000 within 24 hours to help cover the costs of her recruitment.
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The tribunal dismissed racial harassment allegations relating to the invoices, as it was not persuaded there was any connection to her race. Dilibe had a penalty clause in her contact that stipulated she would have to pay visa sponsorship costs if she were to leave the organisation within a specified period of time.
Woodhaze, which trades as Window to the Womb (Swansea), was ordered to pay £33,611.12 in compensation by the Cardiff employment tribunal.
