The Times - UK (2021-11-10)

(Antfer) #1

the times | Wednesday November 10 2021 15


News


A six-foot Tesco worker ridiculed for
being trapped in a room by a pregnant
female boss eight inches shorter has re-
ceived £50,000 for sex discrimination.
Toby King claimed that supervisors
said that “a big man” could not be fright-
ened by a “little pregnant woman”.
An employment tribunal ruled that
King was a victim of sex discrimination
as his bosses refused to take his com-
plaint seriously because of the differ-
ence in size. It ordered Tesco to pay
King £47,690.61 in compensation, in-
cluding £31,000 for “injury to feelings”.
Jo Francis, who was five months
pregnant, put her “foot against the door
[and] physically prevented” King from
leaving the room in a discussion about
extra work hours, the tribunal was told.
King said that he was “vulnerable”
because he had post-traumatic stress
disorder after he was “held hostage”
while with the Prison Service. Tesco
bosses, including Francis, knew of his
condition.
He was sacked for repeatedly failing
to arrive at work. He told bosses that the
incident with Francis had triggered a
relapse that meant he could not leave
his home “without crying”.
The tribunal, in Watford, was told
that King joined Tesco at Aylesbury,
Buckinghamshire, in 2018 and had
another job with the fire service. He was
also studying to become an electrician.
King said that he was absent from

Tesco pays ‘hostage’


employee £50,


Jonathan Ames Legal Editor work over several periods because of a
change in his medication. But in 2018
Francis “berated” him on the shop floor
for being “inflexible” over the Christ-
mas work rota.
He called Francis’s comments “a slap
in the face” as King claimed that he had
been “as flexible as he could be”. King
and Francis met in a staff room but
King said he felt “uncomfortable” stay-
ing in the room and moved to leave. He
said that Francis “put her hand out to-
wards the door” to prevent it from
opening and put her foot against the
door and placed a hand on King’s arm.
CCTV photos of the incident were
provided to the hearing and the tribunal
report said that King appeared to be “in-
creasingly anxious and borderline des-
perate to get out of the room”. Another
manager “dismissed” King’s claims as
he thought Francis, being pregnant,
“would not have behaved that way”.
Judge Jo George said the Tesco man-
agers were influenced by “relative size”.
She said that Francis’s words “cause us
to [think] that her mindset was partly
based upon his sex — upon him being a
man and not simply upon them being of
different sexes”.
The judge ruled that Tesco had not
reasonably investigated Francis’s con-
duct and claims of intimidation and
harassment against her. Tesco also sub-
jected King to harassment related to
sex by dismissing him.
A female in that situation would not
have been dismissed, the judge said.

TMS
[email protected] | @timesdiary

A gap the size


of Switzerland


Harry Hill is not sure that private
education is worth the money. The
comedian sent his daughter to an
expensive school but was concerned
by the gaps in her knowledge when
he helped her to prepare for a
geography exam on the countries of
Europe. She could identify France
and Germany easily enough but he
got a blank face when he pointed at
Switzerland. “I’ll give you a clue,”
said Hill, right. “It’s famous for
cuckoo clocks and chocolate.” She
thought for a second and replied:
“Harrods?” At this point, Hill tells
the Parenting Hell podcast, he
realised he might be spoiling her.

Sir Geoffrey Cox’s decision to run his
parliamentary office from the British
Virgin Islands is nothing new. Thirty
years ago another Tory MP, Sir Eldon
Griffiths, took a job as a professor at
the University of California that
required him to live 5,000 miles from
his constituents for seven months of
the year. It led to him being known as
the member for Orange County.

irn-bru price scandal
Anas Sarwar, the Labour leader in
Scotland, is better disposed towards

England than some of his
countrymen. He even supported
them in this year’s Euros final,
tweeting wittily: “It’s coming next
door.” He does, though, have one
cross-border grievance, telling the
Political Party podcast that he was
appalled to learn that Irn-Bru,
Scotland’s national soft drink, could
be bought more cheaply in England.
It could be worse: Irn-Bru is banned
at Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf
course in Ayrshire because of the
fear of stains. Bright orange, fizzy
and nauseating to many, the former
US president’s personal view of the
drink is unknown.

old school tie-breaker
Keith Bradshaw, the former chief
executive of Marylebone Cricket
Club, who died on Monday at 58,
always insisted that Lord’s wasn’t as
stuffy as its image. The Australian
did, however, find the concerns of
some of its members quite odd.

After suggesting names for a sub-
committee, he was surprised to be
asked to explain why he had picked
three Etonians and no Harrovians.

After yesterday’s item on flatulence
and the royals, several readers
referred me to the 17th-century
biographer John Aubrey’s description
of the Earl of Oxford accidentally
expelling air while “making low
obeisance” in front of Elizabeth I. So
ashamed was he that the earl went off
travelling for seven years. On his
return, the Queen greeted him, saying:
“My Lord, I had forgot the fart.”

chain reaction
When Eva Longoria agreed to film
Decline and Fall for the BBC in
Cardiff a few years ago, the
Desperate Housewives star hadn’t
realised how far Wales was from
London restaurants. Her co-star
Jack Whitehall tells Out to Lunch
that Longoria used to complain
about there not being anywhere to
eat that matched the standards of
Beverly Hills. Until, that is, when
she gleefully returned to set and
announced she had found a small
family-owned Italian restaurant
that did the best pasta she’d ever
had. The cast were excited to try
her discovery — until she told them
it was called Pizza Express.

patrick kidd
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