WORKER QUITS IN DISGUST AND WINS DAMAGES
A POSH care home’s boss blocked hiring a manager because she was black, an employment tribunal heard.
Whistleblower Caroline Hobbs quit in protest after boss Cristina Bila, 61, told staff not to give Paulett Mills the £52,000-a-year job.
Portuguese-born Mrs Bila discovered the colour of Mrs Mills skin and told staff to disguise the reason for her decision.
Secretary Mrs Hobbs, 55, successfully sued Bila’s company, Avon Care Homes Ltd, for constructive dismissal at the Bristol hearing.
She is set for a damages payout at a later date.
Mrs Bila reportedly said: “To have black people in charge of a home like that is not going to work. I don’t have to explain it to anyone. I will interview her then say I don’t like her. I am not having her as a manager.”
Prejudice
Mrs Hobbs noted her comments, left her job and phoned Mrs Mills to warn her she wouldn’t be hired at Pondsmead nursing home in Radstock, Somerset, “because of the colour of her skin”.
The tribunal heard Mrs Hobbs and Bila’s deputy Julia Rea feared she would not employ Mrs Mills.
Employment judge Christa Christensen said: “It was agreed that Mrs Rea would tell Mrs Bila that she had beautiful dark skin. It became clear to Mrs Bila that Mrs Mills was black.
“She was cross at Mrs Rea for not being clear enough the day before regarding Mrs Mills’ ethnicity.”
Mrs Bila ordered a pre-decided second interview in which Mrs
Mills would be rejected. In her resignation note Mrs Hobbs wrote: “I am unable to continue working for a company that has illegal working practice with regard to racial and colour prejudice held by the managing director.”
Cooked
Ms Christensen ruled: “The actions of Mrs Bila utterly undermined Mrs Hobbs’s ability to trust her employer.
“She could not tolerate continuing to be employed on the basis that she was being instructed in terms to be complicit in unlawful recruitment practices.”
Mrs Bila claimed at the hearing she had not known Mrs Mills was black. She claimed Mrs Hobbs cooked up a “premeditated plan to secure financial gain”.
But Ms Christensen rejected this and said of “principled” Mrs Hobbs: “I do not judge her to be someone who could manufacture such seemingly genuine levels of distress.
“It seems inherently unlikely that the claimant has embarked upon a premeditated plan to bring a claim to make a financial gain.”
Mrs Hobbs, of Shepton Mallet, Somerset, said: “Cristina told me black people in a management position were not the right image for her company.
“I had no option but to walk. I had to tell Paulett that she was being racially discriminated against. I couldn’t stay because I was not brought up that way. I was so worried that I wouldn’t get justice but I am so pleased the truth has come out.”
Mrs Mills, who has more than two decades of care home experience, is set to take legal action against Avon Care Homes next month.
She declined to comment on her case.