A First v B Second Respondent: C — 2021

The claimant, a Grade 4 Executive solicitor, alleged that the Second Respondent sexually assaulted her in her hotel room in Bangor on the evening of 21 January 2019 after they had travelled together for work. The tribunal heard detailed and conflicting accounts of the evening and found material aspects of the claimant’s evidence neither credible nor reliable, including her account of a blackout, the alleged sequence of events in the room, and parts of her evidence about what happened afterwards. It accepted the Second Respondent’s account as credible and concluded that the claimant had failed to establish, on the balance of probabilities, that a sexual assault had taken place.

The tribunal also considered the earlier parts of the evening. It accepted that the Second Respondent made the remark, “look at you all dolled-up”, and that there had been kissing between the parties, but it held that the remark, while perhaps ill-judged, did not amount to conduct violating dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. It further found that the claimant’s allegation of sexual harassment failed because the alleged assault was not proved. Because the underlying conduct was not established, the issue of the First Respondent’s vicarious liability under section 109 of the Equality Act 2010 did not arise.

On the sex discrimination claim, the claimant alleged that the First Respondent’s investigation was woefully inadequate, that the report was too short and insufficiently reasoned, that witnesses were not interviewed promptly, that she was disbelieved, that the Respondent adopted a neutral stance, and that no action was taken against the Second Respondent. The tribunal held that there was no evidence that the investigation, report, decision, or appeal process treated the claimant less favourably than a hypothetical male comparator, or that sex played any part in the Respondent’s actions. It found the investigation and appeal were carried out by independent senior staff, that the complaint was taken seriously, and that the appeal was in substance a rehearing.

The tribunal noted that the First Respondent issued the Second Respondent with a verbal warning in February 2019 for inappropriate alcohol consumption before the work presentation, later reaffirmed in May 2019, but it did not uphold the claimant’s allegation that the firm acted because of sex in relation to her complaint. Both claims were therefore dismissed.