Rowena Owens said male colleagues deliberately blitzed her with loud belches in ‘extreme sexism’ hell
A rail worker has pocketed £174,681 after male workers tormented her with burps.
Network Rail Rowena Owens successfully claimed she was a victim of ‘extreme sexism’ due to male signal centre colleagues loudly belching near her.
She was quizzed about oral sex, surrounded by photos of topless women in the office and had to listen to unfair criticism of female train drivers.
Her colleagues regularly watched porn at work and once waved a sex toy at her.
An employment tribunal found she had experienced 25 incidents of sex discrimination at the hands of 16 men at the signal centre in Wimbledon, south-west London.
After a five-year legal battle signaller Rowena won damages totalling £138,012 and has been awarded a further £36,669 costs.
The tribunal heard when she started work in the rail HQ in 2015 she was one of only ‘two or three’ women out of 40 staff.
On her first day, after offering to make tea for her colleagues, a male signaller asked her: “How do you like your oral sex – giving or receiving?”
Her burping ordeal began the following year when she noticed two male colleagues belch loudly as they walked past.
A third sat next to her and deliberately burped loudly and continuously for more than 15 minutes until she had to ask him if he was OK.
For weeks after this several male colleagues would burp during a shift with her and loudly say ‘excuse me’.
Throughout her time in the job men made ‘deliberate and gratuitous use of the word c***’ around her ‘on practically every shift’.
While watching a video with his son sitting next to him another male colleague said: “There’s nothing like a bit of dwarf porn.”
Men left photos of naked women on show.
One colleague looked at nearly nude women ‘with just two thin lines over their private parts’ on a work computer.
After she had made a mistake Rowena overheard a male co-worker say: “This is what you get when you let women in the signal box.”
She was told to sit on a male employee’s lap to ‘pacify him’.
Rowena was referred to as ‘the fat woman’ and men she worked with would whistle a Laurel and Hardy tune or play the Antiques Roadshow theme song near her.
She said female drivers were criticised more than men when they made mistakes and overheard a colleague saying: “I think women should be in the home.”
One worker brought in a sex toy and showed it off while looking at her and smiling for 15 minutes.
She was missed out when male colleagues ordered takeaways.
After submitting a grievance she was fired and launched a sex discrimination claim.
Initially it was tossed out because she had brought it too late.
But she successfully appealed against that judgement and when the case returned to tribunal Network Rail admitted liability resulting in a damages payout.
Employment judge Anne Martin awarded Rowena costs too after ruling it ‘unreasonable conduct’ by the rail company to try to fight the case.
Network Rail said it ‘did not condone any sort of pornographic material in the workplace and all employees have been trained in diversity and inclusion’.