By David Young-
A solicitor has been awarded more than £150,000 in compensation for sex discrimination and unfair dismissal she suffered at work from her manager.
Shipping specialist Helena Biggs received the damages after putting in claims for sex discrimination, victimisation and harassment against London insurance firm A Bilborough & Company Ltd, where she worked for almost 14 years, and two of its claims directors. She also succeeded with a claim for unfair dismissal.
In a hearing lasting seven days, East London employment tribunal heard Biggs was labelled the ‘enforcer’ because she had to address underperformance amongst colleagues, but she had been paid less than her male colleague for five years after they were both promoted to associate director.
The Bristol University graduate – who was criticised for being ‘pushy’, ‘overambitious’ and a ‘ballbreaker’ – claimed she suffered a ‘campaign of victimisation’ that ended in her dismissal as a result of her complaint.
The tribunal also heard how Helena Biggs was warned that she risked scoring an “own goal” when she demanded to know why her salary was lower than the male executive with whom she shared an office. The complainant suffered numerous instances of sex discrimination, including being paid a lower wage than her male colleague, refusal by her boss to allow her work from home even though her male colleague was allowed to work from home.
In his witness statement his evidence is that he thought that she was generally having a moan about her lack of career prospects and that this was part of it. He stated that he considered it to be a minor matter or an aggravating factor. We find it likely that she was raising many issues, one of which was the issue of inequality of pay with KH
which was an important matter for her.
Employment Judge Jones, sitting in the east London hearing centre, awarded Helena Biggs £53,840 for injury to feelings and £28,581 for past lost wages. With interest and other extras included, the total awarded to Biggs was £151,811.
The shipping specialist had worked for City of London insurance business A Billborough & Company Ltd for almost 14 years but had been paid less than her male colleague for five years after they were both promoted to associate director.
The tribunal heard that when in 2006, Biggs had told the claims director of her firm that she was pregnant , he had gone directly to another female employee and told her to ‘keep her legs shut’. The same director had then commented that a friendship between Biggs and a female client might be because the client was a lesbian. He had claimed in his evidence he was pointing this out to ‘protect’ Biggs.
She also suffered a blatant level of sexual discrimination when Biggs and a male colleague were allocated work, another claims director said he could not give her a particular fleet because she was a woman. Biggs was told that the operators of the fleet held sexist views and could not be forced to work with her.
The tribunal also heard that during a discussion about key performance indicators, Biggs heard one director describe her as ‘pushy’, which she considered to be a negative term to describe assertive women. Soon after, the same director suggested she should deal with a particular client by sitting down and talking about the project ‘using your charm’.
Steve Roberts distributed some of the various fleets that he had as clients between the Claimant, KH and two other Associate Directors. The Claimant and KH would cover each other’s desk/work whenever the other
was absent. Both the Claimant and KH continued to be line managed by Mr Roberts and
the three of them worked together.
The Tribunal heard that in 2006, the Claimant was promoted to the post of Claims Executive. In 2008 the
Claimant did a lot of work on the occupational disease claims. In 2010 she was promoted to the post of Associate Director at the same time as another solicitor, her colleague KH. Steve Roberts had been made a Director in 2008, and Ian Barr became a Director in 2010 with Ian Gooch as CEO from 2009.
Sexist Views
At a meeting to discuss the division of work, Steve Roberts informed the Claimant that he could not give her a particular fleet because she was a woman.
Instead, the fleet was allocated to her male colleague, KH. The Claimant’s feelings were hurt by this comment. Mr Roberts explained at the time and in the hearing that this was because the operators of the fleet held sexist views about women and he could not force them to work with the Claimant.
The Claimant had not asked to work on that account but felt that it had not been necessary to tell her the real reason why she could not work with that fleet. At the time she did not believe that Mr Roberts had said that in order to offend her.
The judge had ruled that references to her being ‘overly dominant’ and ‘incredibly ambitious’ by bosses were negative statements about her drive and hard work, which were not judgements that would be made to her, had she been a man.
She was subjected to unfair criticism because of her complaints about equal pay and given objectives which ‘amounted to an excessive and impossible workload… put together because of her gender and to create an oppressive environment for her’. While her line manager made time to meet with her colleague fortnightly, he ‘did not relish’ meeting with the claimant and put it off.