The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Bank worker ‘sacked for not being diverse enough’
Compensation payout for dyslexic staff member who blurted out the ‘N word’ during a training session
Chief RepoRteR
CARL BORG-NEAL can’t get out his words. Tears fall down his cheeks and he is overcome by an involuntary verbal tic, as if he is choking or has momentarily forgotten how to speak. He is 59 years old and out of work, having been sacked by his employer, Lloyds Bank, for inadvertently blurting out the “N word” during an anti-racism training session.
An employment tribunal ruled that Lloyds had unfairly dismissed Mr BorgNeal and discriminated against him on account of his dyslexia, which leads him to “spurt things out before he loses his train of thought”. He has been awarded damages of almost £500,000; combined with Lloyds’ legal costs, and tax, the bank faces a bill close to £1million.
The cash is of some comfort to Mr Borg-Neal. What he really wanted, however, was his job back and he wishes the bank would say sorry for sacking him. Without the apology, the allegation that he is racist hangs over his head.
“It is kind of a double-edged sword. When I set out on this legal claim, I said to my Mum: ‘If I have to sell my house, I don’t care because this is about clearing my name. Lloyds were calling me racist and that is certainly something I am not and something I have never been,” said Mr Borg-Neal, who is also a Conservative councillor in Andover, Hants.
After a career spanning 30 years with Lloyds and its affiliates, Mr Borg-Neal believes that the bank has treated him like a “pariah”; he was told not to contact colleagues and friends in the aftermath of that fateful training session on July 16 2021. It has taken more than two years to win his payout through a court ordeal that risked him facing financial ruin.
“I feel very discriminated against,” he said. “I often wonder if I wasn’t a white, middle-aged male would I have had to go through everything I went through? There is no way of telling. But when I talk to my friends – and as you can imagine many are white, middle-aged and male – we all agree that is the worst thing you can be right now. You are bottom of everything.”
The employment tribunal vindicated Mr Borg-Neal in a 46-page judgment that raises serious questions about how major institutions such as Lloyds Bank tackle “very sensitive issues” that arise during diversity training.
It was about an hour into the online session – attended virtually by about 100 Lloyds managers – that Mr Borg-Neal asked how to handle a situation should someone from an ethnic minority use a word that would be offensive if used by someone not of the same ethnicity. When the trainer did not appear to understand the question, Mr Borg-Neal said by way of explanation: “The most common example being [the] use of the N word in the black community.”
“Unfortunately,” pointed out the tribunal, “the claimant used the full word rather than the abbreviation.”
The bank accepted the comment was made without malice and that the question was valid. The employment judge said Mr Borg-Neal’s dyslexia was a “strong factor causing how he expressed himself and in his use of the full word rather than finding a means to avoid it”.
The trainer was left “badly distressed” and took almost a week off work. But some colleagues at the training session questioned her reaction. According to one attendant, Mr Borg-Neal was “very much reprimanded in front of us all and when [he] tried to apologise or explain he was threatened with ‘you will be thrown off the course’”.
Another said: “I was shocked. After saying at the beginning this would be a safe environment, she launched into a vitriolic attack. Whilst I do not condone what the colleague said … I believe he ‘I realised that once it got to HR, which was dealing with the bank’s race action plan, that I was doomed’ was trying to ask a valid question to aid understanding.”
Mr Borg-Neal was taken aback by the trainer’s reaction. “She went mad,” said Mr Borg-Neal. “I immediately tried to apologise. I said I didn’t mean to upset anybody. I tried to reword the question but she was just shouting at me. She was basically telling me to be quiet and if I didn’t shut up I would be thrown off the course. I bit the bullet and went quiet.”
A complaint reached Lloyds’ HR team and disciplinary procedures activated, although Mr Borg-Neal was never suspended before his dismissal in December 2021. “I realised later on that once it had got back to HR which was dealing with the bank’s race action plan that I was doomed,” he said.
He is convinced that the bank “wanted to make an example of me”. All the father of two wanted was his old job back. That and an apology. “It was my perfect job,” he said of his £55,000-a-year role. But after he won his case in the summer, Lloyds simply said it would appeal, issuing a statement that declared: “We have a zero-tolerance policy on any racial discrimination or use of racist language.”
Mr Borg-Neal was devastated. “They sacked me and called me a racist and they are not withdrawing that, even though everything says I am not and have never been. I find that really offensive. Couldn’t Lloyds have been more mature and admit their mistake and apologise publicly?”
In awarding Mr Borg-Neal damages, the tribunal accepted that “it has hurt the claimant a great deal that he has been branded as a racist”. It ordered that Lloyds circulate the judgment to the bank’s board and “that they be asked to read and digest it”. It warned Lloyds “not to make comments to the press which give a wholly misleading impression”.
“The damage this has done to my health is incredible,” said Mr Borg-Neal. He now suffers back pain and the verbal tic brought on by the stress.
Karolien Celie, legal officer at the Free Speech Union, which helped Mr BorgNeal bring his case, said: “Mr Borg-Neal was treated abysmally by his employer and we are delighted that justice has been served in his case. Mr Borg-Neal’s case is a timely reminder for employers not to be blinded by dogma but to treat each employee fairly in accordance with the law and in a spirit of tolerance, open-mindedness and good faith.”