News

Lesbian employee ‘told to keep sexuality secret’ wins discrimination case

   30 Jan 2019 By Lauren Brown
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   and uncomfortable’ demand

   A lesbian employee who was told by her boss to keep her sexuality
   hidden was the victim of discrimination, a tribunal has ruled.

   Ashleigh McMahon, who worked as a quality control manager at
   Lancashire-based textiles firm Redwood TTM, was told not to share her
   sexuality because she was the only gay employee.

   The Liverpool Employment Tribunal heard McMahon disclosed her sexuality
   to the firm’s managing director, Darren Pilling, in her first week of
   employment.
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   made redundant that December.

   Pilling denied that McMahon had disclosed her sexuality early on in her
   employment or that he told her to disclose it – however, the tribunal
   found in favour of McMahon’s versions of events.
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   It found McMahon had been “discriminated against on the grounds of her
   sexual orientation” because she had been “less favourably treated by
   being asked not to disclose her sexuality by comparison with a
   hypothetical person not sharing her protected characteristic”.

   Employment Judge Wardle added: “In terms of these alleged
   discriminatory acts, we believe that the claimant did make Mr Pilling
   aware of her sexuality early into her employment, despite his
   protestations to the contrary, and while not considering him to be
   homophobic in any way we also believed that he did suggest that she