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Breast-op pub barmaid wins sex-pest claim
A BARMAID yesterday won a sexual harrassment claim after a tribunal heard her boss had repeatedly pestered her at work after a £3,500 breast operation.
The hearing in Sheffield was told pub manager Stephen Hughes bombarded Mandy Butler with crude remarks , grabbed her hips and simulated sex as he stood behind her.
Mrs Butler said Mr Hughes "was gyrating about like Tom Jones" and had said of her breasts: "I can't believe you have spent 3,500 on them and won't let me have a feel."
The married 42-year-old said the taunts were "extremely upsetting, derogatory and disrespectful" as she had previously been flat-chested and depressed over the state of her body.
She was offered a breast enhancement operation on the NHS and felt it wrong to accept, but her husband Simon, 34, a gas engineer, stepped in four years ago and paid for her 38D chest.
Mrs Butler said: "Afterwards I felt so much more confident and more importantly, I felt like a proper woman." But she said her 50-year-old boss had stripped her of all her confidence with his remarks.
Yesterday Mrs Butler said: "I didn't want it to go this far, but when I asked him to stop or asked for an apology he acted as if he had done nothing wrong.
"I have worked in pubs and bars for over 25 years and I thought I had seen it all, but he was touching me and talking about me in ways you just don't expect from your boss.
"Some of the customers even told me to take action against him and at first I didn't know what to do. But then I realised I had to stand up for myself and take things further."
She claimed up to 46,000 in damages from Mr Hughes and his pub company and won her claims for sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and unfair dismissal.
Mrs Butler worked at the Paddock pub in Cantley, Doncaster, for two years until she was sacked in April last year.
She said her working relationship with Mr Hughes, who owns the pub, was fine when he first took over 18 months ago but claimed he began making crude remarks after finding out about her enhancement operation.
When the mother-of-four asked him to stop making the remarks it got even worse. She kept a diary chronicling the abusive remarks and handed Mr Hughes two grievance letters, but she claimed he simply told her to "lighten up".
Mrs Butler was finally sacked at a staff meeting without warning after getting into an argument with a customer and slapping him.
Mr Hughes accepted the dismissal was unfair but denied making inappropriate sexual remarks. He said there was a lot of "banter" between staff at the Paddock and it was Mrs Butler who showed off her breasts to him.
He said: "She came to me behind the bar and said 'look, these have cost me 3,000'. I said to her: 'They were worth every penny'. There has never been any sexual harassment. The allegations of Mrs Butler are a fabrication."
In a reserved judgment, Employment Judge Richard Williams said the panel accepted Mr Hughes had made "crude and sexual" references to Mrs Butler.
The manager spent too much time drinking with friends and customers at the bar and it became a case of "anything goes" at the pub.
Mrs Butler was "fairly robust" herself and willing to join in but it went beyond acceptable limits.
Mrs Butler will find out how much compensation she will receive after a remedy hearing.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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