Don’t say baldy... it’s sexual harassment

CAllING a man ‘bald’ can amount to sexual harassment, a tribunal judge has said.

Hair loss is more prevalent among men than women and using it to describe someone is a form of discrimination, the employment tribunal found.

The ruling – made by a panel of three men who in making their judgment bemoaned their own lack of hair – came in a case between a veteran electrician and the manufacturing firm that dismissed him.

Tony Finn – who is now in line for compensation – had worked for the West Yorkshire-based British Bung Company for almost 24 years when he was fired in May last year.

He claimed, among other things, that he had been the victim of sex harassment following an incident with factory supervisor Jamie King.

Mr Finn alleged that during a shop floor row in July 2019 Mr King had referred to him as a ‘bald c***’ and threatened to ‘deck’ him. The tribunal heard that Mr Finn was less upset by the ‘Anglo Saxon’ language than the comment on his appearance.

‘It is difficult to conclude other than that Mr King uttered those words with the purpose of violating [Mr Finn’s] dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him,’ the Sheffield tribunal found. Employment judge Jonathan Brain, who led the panel, said there was ‘a connection between the word “bald”... and the protected characteristic of sex’, because ‘baldness is much more prevalent in men than women’.

‘We find it to be inherently related to sex,’ he added. He highlighted a previous casein which a man was found to have sexually harassed a woman by remarking on her breasts.

‘It is much more likely that a person on the receiving end of a comment such as that which was made in [that] case would be female,’ the judge said. ‘So too, it is much more likely that a person on the receiving end of a remark such as that made by Mr King would be male.’

The tribunal heard Mr Finn wrote a statement about the work row with the help of his police officer son on official West Yorkshire Police paper. This led the firm to accuse him of trying to intimidate them and fire him for misconduct.

As well as upholding his sex harassment claim, the tribunal ruled the company had dismissed him unfairly.

Mr Finn won claims including unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal and sex harassment.

He lost an additional claim for age discrimination. Compensation will be determined at a later date.

‘Degrading and humiliating’