48 Google staff are fired over sex pest claims

GOOGLE has sacked 48 workers, including 13 senior managers, over sexual harassment, the company admitted last night.

In an email to staff chief executive Sundar Pichai said the decisions had been made as the web giant takes an ‘increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct’.

In the note, which laid bare the full extent of the toxic culture within the company, Mr Pichai added that none of these workers had received a payout.

It came as it was reported that in other instances the firm had hushed up misconduct by top executives and handed out multimillion-pound golden goodbyes rather than reacting to allegations. In a series of bombshell claims, Andy Rubin, the man who created the Android phone, was accused of coercing a woman into performing a sex act on him at a hotel, and allegations were made against other senior figures who have now left the company.

After the sexual misconduct allegation against Mr Rubin in 2013, Google allegedly asked for his resignation and then agreed to years of multimillion- dollar pay- outs totalling $90million (£70million). He had been in charge of the firm’s robotics projects.

The expose, published by The New York Times, said Mr Rubin, 55, was given a ‘hero’s goodbye’ despite bosses deciding allegations against him were credible. Bondage videos were also allegedly found on his work computer.

At the time of his departure in 2014, Mr Rubin’s exit appeared amicable with the then chief executive Larry Page saying in a statement that he wanted to wish the engineer ‘all the best’.

But after months of investigating a series of departures at Google, a culture of misconduct and questionable payoffs within the web giant have been uncovered. Two company executives with knowledge of the case said Mr Rubin had been having an extramarital relationship with a worker at Google.

The woman was allegedly on the verge of breaking off the relationship in March 2013 when the pair met at a hotel and he coerced her into carrying out a sex act. She reported Mr Rubin the following year. Yet although bosses believed the accuser’s claims were credible they asked him to leave quietly. A spokesman for Mr Rubin said he had left the company of his own accord, saying of the claims: ‘Any relationship that Mr Rubin had while at Google was consensual and did not involve any person who reported directly to him.’

Mr Rubin’s case was allegedly far from isolated with two others fired following sexual misconduct, but again paid millions to leave. Another man stayed in a top job at the company.

Google’s former chief executive Eric Schmidt is said to have employed his mistress as a consultant and Sergey Brin, majority shareholder of Google’s parent company Alphabet, reportedly had an affair with an employee in 2014. When David Drummond, now chief legal officer of Alphabet, revealed he was having an affair with co-worker Jennifer Blakely, she was told she would have to leave the legal department.

When asked about Rubin and other cases, Eileen Naughton, from Google’s people operations told said: ‘In recent years, we’ve taken a particularly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority. We’re working hard to keep improving how we handle this.’