At the Christmas party of a party balloon firm, a male marketing executive was allegedly victimised by his female boss who said that a man could not win an award.
Mr Blakeley, a 27-year-old man, made complaints against his former employer Bubblegum balloons in Farnborough, Hampshire, for unfair dismissal, discrimination based on sex, age and gender, harassment and victimisation. He also claimed notice pay and holidays pay.
The respondent, who employs 44 employees, of which almost all are women, hosted a Christmas Party on 21 November 2022, to which all employees were invited. The staff voted on different categories and prizes were awarded.
Mr Blakeley said that Laura Slater announced at the party: “Now, it’s time to award the prizes.” Spoiler alert: It won’t be one of the men. He said that, “at the moment of the director’s racist comment in the audience, many employees of respondent looked at me with laughter. I remember feeling red-faced and embarrassed that there were only three men present in a room with a majority of women. “I was disappointed when a director at the respondent company publicly stated that I would not be receiving an award because of my gender or target me for my gender.”
After reviewing the video evidence, the tribunal determined that Mr Blakeley was wrong. Megan Robertson, the founder of the company, was the one who read out the results. She accidentally pre-empted gender.
She said to the tribunal: “When reading out the results of one of the award categories I introduced it with a reference to’she,’ and then I went on to say Sorry boys …’. When I awarded the prize I knew the winner’s name, so I accidentally said “she” as I was about naming the person. “There was no discrimination and [Mr Blakeley] didn’t raise any issue about this in his attendance at work until and including 22 Febuary 2023.”
The directors expressed concerns at a meeting held on the 21st of February about Mr Blakeley’s performance. He returned home from that meeting in a agitated state of mind. At 10pm the claimant’s mom called Ms Slater about her son’s stress at work. She also complained about the work performance review, and that Mr Blakeley was forced to clean women’s restrooms.
Mr Blakeley, unaware of Ms Slater’s presence in the conversation on speakerphone, claimed to have understood Ms Slater to be dismissing him.
Ms Slater found the tone of Ms Blakeley threatening. She said to the tribunal that she was “extremely… upset” by Ms Blakeley’s actions. I was calmly explaining to [Mr Blakeley] that he did not have to come to work if he were ill when she abruptly terminated the phone call. “At no time did I say that [Mr Blakeley] had been dismissed and, in any case, no such decision would have been taken without first discussing it with my codirectors.”
The tribunal agreed that Ms Slater had not verbally dismissed Mr Blakeley. She did, however, block Mr Blakeley’s access to the work systems while an investigation was conducted into his performance.
The company notified the claimant on 23 February 2024 that he would be suspended with full pay while an investigation was conducted. He was fired on 31 March for gross misconduct. He was invited but did not attend both the investigation and disciplinary meeting and initially had failed to return his laptop to work as requested.
The Reading tribunal judge found Mr Blakeley’s account of his dismissal was inaccurate and that it had happened on 31 March and not during the telephone call between Ms Slater’s mother and him.
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