Worker ‘called colleague ‘sugar t*ts’ and ‘humped her desk’ at award-winning estate agents
Charlotte Lloyd claims she was ‘sexually harassed’ by sales negotiator Michael Keilthy who was suspended and later dismissed
A sales negotiator was called “sugar t*ts” by a colleague who “humped her desk” at an award-winning estate agents, an employment tribunal hears.
Charlotte Lloyd, 35, claims she was sexually harassed by Michael Keilthy who was later suspended and dismissed from Callaways Estate Agent of Worthing, West Sussex, after she complained.
She said he frequently made ‘groaning noises of a sexual nature’ as he ate his lunch near her and once suggested they both took their tops off when they were alone in the office kitchen.
The negotiator was with the family firm for 15 months and claims the trouble “began almost immediately”, with the harassment lasting five months from February to July 2014.
As she left work one day in July, Keilthy told her to ‘service her husband well’ while making an oral sex gesture with his hands and mouth, the tribunal heard.
Just five days earlier, she claims he dubbed her ‘sugar t*ts’ — then proceeded to ‘wag his tongue up and down’ in a ‘licking gesture’.
She told the tribunal there was a ‘culture of accepting his behaviour’, adding: “I felt the harassment was very targeted, upsetting and humiliating.
“It was impacting my confidence and making the work environment very unpleasant. He was not like this to others.”
On another occasion by the printer, he lowered his hand and ‘cupped it’ not too far from her crotch. He then allegedly ‘wiggled his fingers’ and ‘wagged his tongue up and down’.
Detailed in her grievance, she wrote that he then laughed and said: “Whoops! Sorry! That was a bit rude wasn’t it?”
Lloyd, of Hove, East Sussex, eventually raised a grievance and Keilthy was suspended and then dismissed, but she was later signed off work for five days with stress — allegedly sparked by spotting him at the Christmas party.
After the time off she was told her role would go part time due to concerns over her ‘welfare’.
She quit after and is taking the firm to an employment tribunal for constructive dismissal claiming the move was a way to employ someone else.
She is taking Callaways Estate Agents, of Worthing, West Sussex, to a tribunal following her resignation as she is claiming constructive dismissal.
She is now working as a childminder but claims a “lacklustre” reference from the firm also saw a job offer as a £30,000 a year private PA withdrawn.
The tribunal continues.
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