Tribunal Member: Ms G Eckersley Tribunal Member: S Singh Ms Aishah Zaman v Represented by: Ms C Greig -15 Solicitor Knightsbridge Furnishing Ltd — 2022

Aishah Zaman worked for Knightsbridge Furnishing Ltd from 1 July 2018 and later became office manager. The tribunal found a course of conduct by Shahzad Younas from about August 2018 to April 2020, including WhatsApp messages and in-person exchanges that it held were related to sex or of a sexual nature. Those incidents included comments about cleaning and cooking for him, remarks about her appearance and gym use, messages referring to her as a prostitute or doing "prostitutes' work", sexual messages and images, and the events of 16 April 2020 when Younas shouted at her, grabbed her arm, and told her to leave.

The tribunal held that this conduct amounted to harassment under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010 and created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. It rejected the direct sex discrimination claim based on dismissal, finding that the dismissal was not because of sex; on the claimant's case, the issue was that she had stood up to Younas and challenged him, which was not enough to establish sex as the reason. It also held that by 7 May 2020 the claimant had done a protected act by intimating allegations of sexual harassment and victimisation.

The tribunal further held that later allegations made against the claimant, including an allegation of fraudulent theft of £17,718.29, were false and were made because of that protected act, so victimisation succeeded. It held that the harassment conduct extended over a period from about August 2018 until sometime in April 2020, so the claim was in time under section 123. On remedy, it rejected the illegality defence, held there was no inextricable link between the non-payment of tax and national insurance and the discrimination claims, awarded £16,000 for injury to feelings plus £2,984 interest, and held the respondents jointly and severally liable; no ACAS uplift or grossing up was applied.