(Image: Supplied)
The owners of a hotel in Thurso have been ordered to pay £13,048 to a 15-year-old waitress who was repeatedly sworn at by its chef and general manager, then dismissed over a mental health condition it wrongly believed she had.
An employment tribunal found Danisha Charles was directly discriminated against and harassed because of her age, sex, disability and race.
The black college student, who worked at the hotel on a zero-hours contract from May 1 to June 26, 2024, earning £7 an hour, was shouted at and referred to as "that" and "it" by the cook.
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The tribunal found she was the youngest worker by some distance, with all others in their early twenties or older. She was also one of only two black employees among 14 staff.
The tribunal heard the chef "showed his contempt" for her from the outset. It found she put up with it in silence because she enjoyed the work and did not want to lose her shifts.
It identified three incidents. In her first week, the chef shouted and swore at her when she struggled to hold a very hot plate without adequate protection on her hands.
In her third week, she misspelled "porridge" on an order slip, a consequence of her severe dyslexia, which she had disclosed at interview. The tribunal found the chef shouted at her in front of colleagues: "That's not how you f*** ing spell porridge."
The tribunal heard she also felt humiliated and embarrassed by the fact that the chef was sharing with all the fellow workers present her inability to spell the word porridge.
The third incident was when Ms Charles was serving dessert to the last table of a large coach party when a kitchen swing door knocked a plate of apple crumble from her hand.
She went back into the kitchen to explain. Ms Charles told the tribunal that the chef and the general manager, Andy Woodcock, were "in my face shouting and swearing at me".
The teenager broke down in tears and shouted back at them to stop.
"Although the claimant had tholed in silence previous outbursts of the same type, on this occasion she was so overwhelmed by the abuse which she received that she broke down crying and shouted back at her abusers to stop treating her in that way," the Employment Judge said.
"The general manager and the chef joined in shouting at the claimant that she should 'get out'.
"As the claimant left the kitchen to comply with that direction someone began to pull her apron from behind.
"The claimant went to reception where the receptionist tried to calm her down but had great difficulty in doing so."
Four days later, Mr Woodcock emailed her mother to say he had "thought about the situation long and hard and possible ways to solve the issue".
He added: "But had we been aware of Daniesha's anxieties and depressions before her employment we would not have put her into this style of environment.
"I would not like to subject Daniesha to any situation that would be detrimental to her health. So I feel the only option is for the Hotel to finish her employment at this current time."
The judge found this showed the manager "perceived the claimant to be someone who, at the time of commencing her employment with the respondent suffered from mental impairments of anxiety and depression such as to have a material and substantiated adverse impact on her ability to carry out day-to-day activities, including working in a kitchen and/or waiting environment".
However, he found she did not have anxiety or depression when she was hired.
Though, he noted, she later developed anxiety and was prescribed treatment by her GP, with the doctor "attributing her mental state of health to the treatment to which she had been subjected at the hands of the respondent's manager Andy Woodcock and the respondent's chef".
The hotel had admitted at an earlier hearing that the chef and manager shouted and swore, but denied discrimination.
In its initial response to the claim, it said the chef "did indeed raise his voice inappropriately" at a high-pressure point in service and was given a written warning.
It said Ms Charles had also sworn at him, and that the hotel is a multicultural workplace. It pointed to its sponsor licence for overseas workers, including Nepalese staff.
The tribunal was not persuaded.
It accepted Ms Charles's evidence, which went unchallenged, as credible and generally reliable.
The tribunal also found that the chef and Mr Woodcock "did not shout and swear at any of the male members of staff of white British origin, and who were older than the Nepalese and black South African male members of staff and were older than the claimant".
That, the judge ruled, was enough to shift the burden of proof to the hotel to show a non-discriminatory reason.
Beyond what the judge called "a bald denial of liability", it offered none.
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Ms Charles had claimed £58,700 for injury to feelings, but the tribunal said her case did not come close to that.
It treated the three incidents as separate one-off events and noted she had wanted to keep working there.
The judge also found the hotel had failed to give her any written statement of terms and awarded three weeks' pay, rather than the minimum two, because of her age and inexperience.
A spokesperson for Melville Hotels said the events in the judgment related to a previous trading company and previous management arrangements, and that the company now operating the hotel and its current management team had no involvement in them.
They said the current operator strongly disputes that there was discrimination towards staff, and that some allegations and comments made during the proceedings were unfounded and were not established as findings of fact by the tribunal.