Radio station boss ‘claimed women were best at home’, tribunal hears

Dawn Carney, 37, is claiming unfair dismissal and sexual harassment against the then managing director of Darlington-based Star Radio John Clayton and its parent firm, UK RD Group.

She has told a tribunal in Newcastle that Mr Clayton made a series of sexist and inappropriate remarks about women during the two months they worked together before she was sacked last March.

Ms Carney, from Ingleby Barwick, Stockton, Teesside, said she changed her hair colour after leaving the firm which she had joined in July 2013, six months before Mr Clayton arrived.

In her statement of claim, she said Mr Clayton had told her she did not “look as good” as she did on her Twitter and LinkedIn pages.

She said: “This clearly made me feel extremely uncomfortable as I did not and I still do not understand how that was appropriate or at all relevant to the excellent job I was doing.”

Mr Clayton would comment on her outfits and whether he liked them, she claimed.

He liked the neckscarves she wore as they reminded him of air hostesses, she stated.

Ms Carney, who has left the media and runs a boutique in Yarm, said he would make sexist comments about women being “better at cleaning” and their role was “best at home”.

The respondents do not accept her claims and the hearing continues.