A tribunal ruled a woman was bullied at work after insults were hurled, including one person calling her a ‘nutter’ under their breath
Calling a colleague a nutter counts as harassment, a top tribunal has ruled.
Employment judges said they believed the ‘insult’ should not be used as it is “unpleasant and hostile”.
A Royal Mail worker brought a case against her employer and former colleagues, saying she had been subjected to abuse during her time working at a mail centre in Croydon.
Corlee Maynard said she would hear fellow workers call her a “nutter” under their breath when she walked past them.
She brought a harassment and racial court case against the firm and judges ruled the abuse was harassment, but added they did not believe it to be racially motivated in a ruling.
Employment judge Michael Reed said the insult can meet the threshold for harassment as the name-calling can cause a “hostile environment”.
The hearing was told Ms Maynard started working for Royal Mail in November 2001.
All was fine until December 2020 when she claimed harassment started.
She said that she was working in a mostly Pakistani team, which separated her as one of the few black people in the workforce.
The worker told the judge she would frequently argue with the other members of her team, which she believed was due to her being the ‘victim of a cabal within the Mail Centre’.
The first incident, in December 2020, occurred when a co-worker told her what to do, but Ms Maynard felt that she didn’t have the authority to do so.
They argued briefly, during which her co-worker told Ms Maynard to ‘shut up’.
But at a meeting discussing the incident, one of Ms Maynard’s co-workers pointedly said to another that ‘some people have no brains’.
In the months after the argument, other co-workers began to use ‘despicable’ and ‘disparaging’ insults towards Ms Maynard ‘in defence’ of their friend.
They would mutter things under their breath when she walked past.
They would use the word ‘nutter’, it was heard.
It was also heard Ms Maynard received other insults – including being told she was an ‘ugly b**ch’, was ‘grossly ugly’, and was ‘mentally ill’.
Judge Reed said the insults, including ‘nutter’, could amount to harassment.
“I have concluded that this was unwanted conduct, which had the effect of creating a hostile environment for Ms Maynard”, Judge Reed said.
“Given my findings of fact, this is self-evident, both from the nature of the remarks and from Ms Maynard’s evidence.
“The comments are unpleasant and hostile, but the words used do not refer, either explicitly or by implication, to Ms Maynard’s race.”
Ms Maynard ultimately lost a race harassment claim because Judge Reed said there wasn’t sufficient evidence colleagues were using the word due to racism.