Ms W Gannon v Verisure Services Ltd — 2019

Ms Gannon brought claims of sex harassment, victimisation, indirect sex discrimination and unlawful deduction from wages. The tribunal heard evidence about workplace WhatsApp messaging and earlier incidents, including a 2016 circulation of a pornographic image in a team chat, which it treated as relevant background to the atmosphere at work. It rejected the January 2018 allegation that Mr Vaz had said there were "hot new girls" in the office and the March 2018 allegation that he had said that, as a woman, the claimant had to work twice as hard, finding that the latter remark was made in an encouraging context rather than as harassment.

The tribunal upheld the sex-harassment complaint arising from Mr Desilva’s 21 March 2018 WhatsApp message referring to the Southend team as his "bitches". It accepted that the expression was derogatory and related to sex, and that in the workplace context it had the effect of violating dignity or creating an offensive environment. The tribunal dismissed the other harassment allegations and referred to the authorities cited in the case, including Richmond Pharmacology v Dhaliwal and General Municipal and Boilermakers Union v Henderson, when assessing the harassment test.

On victimisation, the tribunal held that the claimant’s complaint about the "my bitches" comment was a protected act. It found that Mr Vaz victimised her when he said she was making the conversation toxic, later told her that if she was not happy she should find something else, and then removed her from the WhatsApp group. Those acts were found to be caused by her objection to the comment. The separate allegation that she was victimised by being asked to attend the workplace during annual leave was dismissed; the tribunal found either that Mr Vaz had forgotten about the leave or that there was no causal connection with the protected act.

The indirect sex discrimination claim under section 19 of the Equality Act 2010 was dismissed because the tribunal did not identify a relevant PCP of encouraging employees to change workplace if they did not like banter. The unlawful deduction from wages complaint was also dismissed: the claimant had pleaded a deduction of £647.58 from final pay, but the tribunal found that figure was not proved and that later payslip issues were outside the original pleaded claim. The tribunal recorded that the upheld discrimination and victimisation had caused the claimant’s resignation and said that the remedy hearing would determine how long she was likely to have stayed absent the discrimination; no monetary award was made in this judgment.