A handy guide on how to lose a sexual harassment case

By Alistair June 5, 2023 14:58

Want to lose a sexual harassment case? You’re reading the right article.

As we all know, finding any staff (let alone good staff) at the moment is challenging, so when you’ve got one, you want to keep hold of them.

So, imagine how you’d feel in this situation…

Claire started working for you as the deputy course manager.

Good worker, team player, popular with the team and the members – fantastic, job done, weight off your shoulders.

Until Monday afternoon.

Claire’s working next to the clubhouse when a group of seniors finish their round and come out on the terrace for a drink.

They have a few drinks and a natter, and it’s all good-natured chit-chat, until Bob – who’s now well beyond the legal driving limit – loudly questions how he’s going to get home.

Claire overhears and tries to go above and beyond – he only lives five minutes from the club, so she offers to take him.

Bob’s response: “Thanks, and then we can have a little sex, yes?”

Stony silence, as what he’s just said sinks in.

Hoping against hope that she’s misheard, Claire comes back with a single word: “What?”

Bob digs in: “After you have taken me home, we can have a little sex, can’t we?”

Claire just stares at him, silently.

“That’s what you’re offering, isn’t it?”

Claire’s response is emphatic, explaining clearly that “No that’s not what I’m offering, and the offer to take you home is off the table!”, before storming off.

Bob is undeterred and seems eternally optimistic – despite his friends’ best attempts to get him to get a taxi, he refuses to budge, continuing to repeat his view that Claire offered to take him home, and now she’s obliged to.

Bob’s ‘friends’ eventually give up and leave him there, sat on the terrace, glowering at Claire as she goes in and out of the clubhouse that afternoon.

Things escalate further when another employee’s boyfriend turns up and asks why this guy is staring at Claire. After hearing the facts, he makes it very clear that staying on the terrace is not an option and that Bob needs to leave.

To his minuscule credit, Bob takes the hint, albeit grudgingly, with the parting shot to Claire:

“If anything bad happens to me on the walk home, it is on your shoulders!”

Honestly, we do not make these things up.

Understandably, Claire raised a grievance against the 20-year stalwart of the club and committee member Bob, and to give credit to the club, they did start by dealing with the situation correctly.

When a staff member raises a complaint like this, it is called ‘raising a grievance’ and has to be dealt with using the ACAS guidelines.

These are rules that you HAVE to follow (or you will end up paying a big fine) to make sure you deal with the situation fairly and reasonably.

The club also has a duty of care to ensure that Claire works in a safe place, free from sexual harassment.

They knew they needed to investigate what had happened to find out the details so that they could respond to Claire and take appropriate action against Bob, if any.

That’s when it all unravelled.

The two board members asked to do the investigation, despite being asked to call us for a briefing on the best way to approach the matter and their total lack of any experience in dealing with an employment law grievance, decide to press on and do the investigation “like they do it on the TV in Line Of Duty”.

• They refused to send us any interview notes until they had done all of the interviews with all witnesses.

• They interviewed Bob’s friends whom they allowed to get away with saying “We don’t remember anything ‘untoward’ being said”.

• They sent Claire’s initial grievance to ALL those involved in the situation: bar staff, Bob’s friends and Bob himself. That is NOT what you do.

• They tried to interview Bob. He postponed his interview for a week, and then in the interview said that he didn’t feel he would say the right thing verbally, instead he would submit a written statement ‘in due course’! They still don’t have this, five days later.

• The cherry on the top? The email with Claire’s grievance was copied to everyone. Including Bob. With her private email address in it, and her mobile number that she had given as part of the grievance. So, in case this situation wasn’t dicey enough, we can now add a GDPR data breach where the club has now given the abuser the contact details of the person he was sexually abusive to.

Where do we go from here?

We currently have a major damage limitation exercise on our hands because everything that has been done to date could easily be used by a no-win, no-fee solicitor to prove that the club has at the very least condoned sexual harassment by a committee member and may even be guilty of aiding and abetting future abuse.

When you do an investigation, you need to:

• Speak to your HR advisors before carrying out any interviews with witnesses.

• Record all interviews on your phone.

• Treat the allegations as true and serious until you find evidence to contradict this.

• Your focus, as the employer, is on keeping your staff safe and protecting the club from the reputational damage of a tribunal claim.

• Keep all contact information of the person raising the complaint confidential from the accused, so that they cannot threaten them for having raised the complaint.

• Do not make allowances for your equivalent of ‘Bob’ – even if he was drunk, has been there for 20 years, and is a committee member, he is not the victim here.

For further advice on this matter or any other staff or member issue affecting your golf club, please contact Carolyne Wahlen, Golf HR, on cw@golfhr.co.uk or 01491 598 700