Let’s not do it!
Head chef wins £80,000 payout after boss at Lakeland hotel sang Victoria Wood’s saucy ‘Ballad of Barry and Freda’ at him
THE head chef at a Lake District hotel has won an £80,000 payout after his boss sexually harassed him by ‘suggestively’ singing Victoria Wood’s classic ‘Ballad of Barry and Freda’.
Sam Nunns won the payout after manager Andrew Wilson serenaded him and made ‘disconcerting gestures’ as he emphasised the lyric ‘let’s do it’.
Mr Nunns told an employment tribunal that his boss at the 19th Century country retreat ‘attempted eye contact’ while gesticulating and singing the song, which tells of a woman propositioning her introverted husband for sex.
Wood’s 1980s ballad – a parody of Cole Porter’s original – features lyrics such as: ‘Let’s do it, let’s do it, do it while the mood is right. I’m feeling appealing, I’ve really got an appetite.’
The chef claimed Mr Wilson had also repeatedly touched his thigh and bottom and lingered while hugging him as he worked at the £170-a- night hotel.
On other occasions, he said Mr Wilson referred to a cucumber and asked him ‘do you need some time alone dear’ and ‘I’ll put olive oil on the orders list again’.
The general manager was also claimed to have ‘faked an orgasm’
‘He repeatedly touched his thigh’
when eating the chef’s food, and then hugged and ‘mildly dramatised dry-humping’ him.
The tribunal, held in Manchester, heard Mr Nunns was excited when he landed his first head chef role at the 35-bedroom Windermere Manor Hotel in Cumbria, which boasts views of Windermere, in October 2021. But he resigned following the incidents, including the ballad recital which happened just three months after he’d taken the position.
Mr Wilson admitted he sang the song, but said this was only because the Bury-born comedian had come up in conversation and Mr Nunns hadn’t heard the song.
Although the tribunal ruled that several of these occurrences did not constitute harassment, an employment judge said the song had ‘violated his dignity’.
As a result, it amounted to unwanted sexual conduct, along with ‘ repeated’ touching, massaging his shoulders and saying he loved him. Mr Nunns was awarded compensation of £79,119.
Ruling that Mr Nunns had been sexually harassed, employment judge Phil Allen said: ‘The Tribunal accepted that the song was sung in the way evidenced by [Mr Nunns], with particular emphasis being placed upon the words repeated regularly throughout the song of ‘let’s do it’ and those words being accompanied by eye contact and disconcerting gestures towards him.’ He added it was clear the song had the effect of ‘violating the claimant’s dignity and creating a degrading, humiliating and offensive environment for him’.
The hotel said it had been ‘an isolated incident’.
The Ballad of Barry and Freda was considered to be one of Wood’s most popular comic songs. She died of cancer in 2016, at 62.