‘COLLEAGUE STRANGLED ME UNTIL I PASSED OUT AT WORKS CHRISTMAS PARTY...’
BAR MANAGER'S SHOCKING CLAIM
It was meant to be a night to celebrate. After a year of hard work, staff from the Cameo Club in Cardiff were holding their Christmas party at the bar on Wellfield Road, Roath on New Year’s Day.
But for manager Molly Phillips it would be a night that would change her life.
The 23-year-old woman has just won an employment tribunal ruling that she was unfairly dismissed when bosses failed to properly investigate her complaint that she was strangled at the party.
Footage from CCTV shown to the hearing captured the moment her colleague and chef Nathan Webb put his arm around her neck and strangled her.
The video, which Judge Alison Frazer refers to in her judgment, shows Molly’s arms go rigid as the chef holds her neck and when he releases her, she collapses to the floor, hitting her head.
Molly has told the tribunal she had since learned that her facial paralysis is more permanent than first thought and she may never be able to smile again.
She said she was told her injuries “were either caused by lack of oxygen or nerve damage”.
The tribunal heard that Mr Webb was arrested over the incident but was released under investigation and remained employed by the Cameo Club after the incident.
Molly initially returned to work after the incident and told bosses she did not want to take any action. But as time went by she became increasingly distrustful and fearful of the chef.
At the same time, medics were telling her that the injuries she suffered would have longer-lasting effects than previously thought.
Yet when she raised these concerns with the directors of the company, she was told to get over it and ultimately felt she had no choice but to quit.
In her judgment following the tribunal, Judge Frazer was heavily critical of the Cameo’s directors for failing to take Molly’s concerns seriously.
She said: “The fact was the CCTV evidence showed that Mr Webb had her in a hold which caused her to fall to the floor.
“It was only open to the respondent to take a view as to what action was appropriate after it had impartially gathered the facts via an investigation.
“I find that from April onwards [company director] Mr [Huw] Davies acted in a way which was dismissive of the claimant’s feelings about the incident. He told her to ‘get over it’.”
Since the incident, Molly says that as well as her partial facial paralysis, she suffers from PTSD, anxiety and depression.
“I can’t smile in photographs,” she said. “People don’t notice it, but I notice it more than anything.
“If it’s still like that when I get married, I won’t be able to smile in my wedding photos. Things like that. It’s not nice.” But for Molly, the worst bit was the fact her bosses didn’t do anything.
“I’d worked there for two and a half years and done everything to that place and it was just like I realised I meant nothing to them,” she said.
In her evidence at the employment tribunal at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court in November, Molly said she felt as if the directors didn’t take her seriously.
When she told director Jason Pearce, she claimed he responded by joking with Mr Webb as he walked past, telling him something along the lines of: “All right, buddy? Hear you’ve been choking girls lately.”
“I was never asked if I was comfortable, how my medical condition was, nothing,” she said.
Molly told the hearing that as time went by she was finding it increasingly difficult.
She told the hearing after other alleged behaviour by Mr Webb including putting chilli in a staff member’s soup and threatening someone on a night out, she told her employers she had begun to lose faith in their ability “to keep her safe in her workplace”.
By March 24 she said she was “finding it hard to come into work and was crying both before and during my shifts”.
She told the tribunal: “Around the end of March I was in tears to Huw, telling him that I just didn’t feel comfortable in work anymore, but I was given the same response over and over, that he couldn’t ‘wave a magic wand and fix everything’.”
She also claimed she was told in one meeting on April 4 by Mr Davies to just “get over it”, and was told the same again on April 18.
In her written judgment, Judge Frazer criticised the directors for not fully investigating at this stage.
Judge Frazer wrote: “In my finding there was an inextricable link between the incident at the Christmas party and the workplace. It was a works Christmas party held on site.”
She also criticised the directors for their response to the CCTV footage. She said: “Mr Pearce understood from the CCTV that the claimant had been strangled.
“Mr Davies, on the other hand, denied that this was the case.”
And she concluded that because of their actions – and the actions of another person brought in to hear a grievance that Molly raised – Molly was justified in resigning.
Judge Frazer concluded: “[Molly] was constructively unfairly dismissed.”
The Cameo Club said it had “no comment at all”.
After the hearing, a spokeswoman for South Wales Police said: “A 33-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of assault and he is currently released under investigation.”