£575,000 FOR BEING CALLED A WHOOPSY

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/36svn2n

Well what can one say?

Yet another exorbitant pay-out for the "unspeakable" crime of having a bit of harmless back-chat thrown at her.

What proof did she have of what she said happened, or was it her word against theirs?

There have been many women who have endured actual sexual acts against them, but they have not received anywhere near this amount of money.

[Greedyfly]

Ridiculous. I have been called much worse by colleagues and it never once occured to me to complain about it. And your right AOG there are many women who suffer mcuh worse and nothing gets done. If I were that lady I would be ashamed of myself!

[supersuezy24]

I have just read through this article and what a joke!!!
I would be embarrassed accepting that payout and having my picture in the paper for the reasons she has.
I get comments off guys about my boobs and stuff but I'm not getting some crazy payout for been "traumatised and bullied"

[sp1814]

Yet another case of grown men acting like 15 year old boys. Absolutely pathetic. Don't they have the common sense to stop acting like that when they leave school?

Good luck to her. Hope she has better luck with her next set of colleagues.

[jake-the-peg]

Great piece of journalism from the express

Take the most trivial taunt and suggest that that was what the judgement was for:

Don't bother to highlight the atmosphere of sexual haressment that was going on.

Colleagues watching pornography on Duty
Using the radio system to track attrcative stewardesses and passengers
a male firearms instructor who said: “Come and sit at the front. I promise not to look at your chest.”

I'm pretty damn sure what would happen if I said that to a woman at work

There's a good question about the amount of damages but the Express has chosen to trivialise it

[sp1814]

There seems to an air of "Listen women...if you work in a male-dominated job, you'd better put up and shut up".

I think a better idea would be to say, "Men - if you cannot control yourselves at work, and treat your colleagues with respect, then you'd better go look for another job".

[jackthehat]

<Yet another exorbitant pay-out for the "unspeakable" crime of having a bit of harmless back-chat thrown at her. >

Obviously the tribunal viewed it as significantly more than 'harmless backchat'.

[VHG]

Be interesting to compare it to a soldier who lost a leg or an arm in Afganistan.

Their payouts are nowhere near this figure.

[OrcadianOil]

Kind of makes my award of £25k look naff, dinnit? As a Police Officer, I survived a violent attempt on my life which resulted in me being medically discharged. I haven't been able to work since. And it wasn't that long ago, either - 21st century!

I reckon hurt feelings must be worth more than physical and mental injury, then???

[jackthehat]

Do any of us have an idea quite 'why' the award was so high ?

Did she seek this sum, or was it awarded by the tribunal ?

I don't think that it is possible to compare like with like; this police-officer and an injured soldier.............

[sp1814]

OrcadianOil

But you're not comparing like for like.

If it were your COLLEAGUES who took you out to the back of the station, and beat you up so badly that you could no longer work, then you would be entitled to sue the Force.

However, when you have to leave the service due to actions outside the remit of your employer, then it's not really down to your employer to compensate you.

For that, you would have to have a private insurance plan in place which would pay you for loss of earnings.

[sp1814]

By the way, I wasn't shouting the word COLLEAGUES...it's just that you can no longer do italics in Answerbank.

[stewey]

"colleagues"

[bazwillrun]

obviously you dont understand what italics are !

[craft1948]

I put up with sexual harrassment from one of my bosses, for about 4 years. I used to actually cry at the thought of going into work. He was very clever about it so if I had reported him it would have been just my word against his.
Luckily one of my male friends bumped into him in the pub one night and told him what he'd do if he didn't back off and it stopped............it takes guts to report someone.

[stewey]

Yes, Baz, it seems that way; but, for some reason, when I saw "italics", my brain saw "quotation marks".........Oh well.

[joeluke]

£575,000 for her 'hurt feelings'???

The maximum MOD compensation package is £285,000 - less than half of this womans ludicrously over the top payout.........so a soldier who, say, loses both arms and both legs (i.e. GENUINELY and PERMANENTLY hurt) gets less than half the compensation of a woman who has been called a few names and endured a bit of male banter.

I think the operative word here people is PERSPECTIVE