A CATERING service has been found not to be responsible for sexual harassment suffered by an employee after an employment tribunal.
Recently published documents from the tribunal, heard in Cardiff in April and May, said that the claimant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had alleged that the offence had taken place on November 1, 2021, a day on which she was due to work at Hereford Racecourse.
Her employer would offer shifts across south Wales and the west of England for its employees, often catering or bar work at sporting events, the tribunal heard.
She had been late arriving at her employer's office in Cardiff, where transport would take her to Hereford, and was instead offered a lift by a colleague, who told her she was not required to work that day.
According to tribunal documents, the claimant said she was taken to a golf course near Pontypridd and sexually assaulted.
The incident was reported to the police, but the claimant later retracted her statement and no charge was made.
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Her employer said they were not liable for the accused colleague's actions as they did not happen in the course of their employment of them.
In oral submissions to the tribunal, the claimant had said that evidence she had presented "overwhelmingly proved" that the accused colleague had been at work at the time, but did not take the tribunal to any particular point of her witness statement or documents, tribunal documents said.
The tribunal heard that the claimant had booked to work a shift at Hereford Racecourse on November 1 some days earlier, but had been cancelled. The claimant, however, said she had not received any communication about the cancellation, and the tribunal found she believed she was due to work that day.
The tribunal also found that the accused had not been acting in the course of his employment that day, as there was no evidence that he was booked to work at Hereford Racecourse.
It was found that, on the balance of probabilities, while the accused did sexually harass the claimant, the employer was not liable for his actions, as they were not done in the course of his employment with the employer.
The claim for sexual harassment against the employer was dismissed.
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