Sexual Harassment at Workplace: Case Scenario and Legal Implications

This report discusses a case scenario of sexual harassment at the workplace, the legal implications under the Equality Act, and the duty of the employer to prevent such harassment. It highlights the importance of building a healthy employer-employee relationship and promoting fairness and equality in the workplace.

Professional Legal
Skills

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Employee behaviour can be defined as the reaction of the employee to the particular
situation at the workplace. The workers have to behave very sensibly in the workplace not only
to take appreciation but also to build the healthy culture within the organisation. There has been
a culture of harassment at the workplace where women are subject to unprofessional and
unethical behaviour by their colleagues and seniors which makes their working difficult
(Harrison, Fox and Hulme, 2020). The law prohibits such kind of behaviour in order to bring
equality and fairness in the workplace and also to promote safe environment for women. This
report shall cover a case scenario relating to sexual harassment at workplace.
MAIN BODY
The employment law is designed to protect and maintain the healthy and positive
employer- employee relationship. There are many legislations which comes under the umbrella
of employment which includes Equality Act, National minimum wages Act and many other. The
foremost important piece of legislation is equality Act which promotes equal and fair opportunity
for all and prohibits discrimination at workplace. Harassment is also a kind of discrimination
which is mainly faced by the women and the equality Act includes the provision to prohibit the
sexual harassment at workplace.
If a person abuses, insults or otherwise harms the other on regular basis, it is termed as
harassment. Sexual harassment is one such which is prohibited at the workplace in order to bring
safe and secure environment for all and the legislation on the harassment offers to promote fair
and equal opportunity for all, irrespective of their gender, race or other protective characteristics
(Samora and et. al., 2020).
A behaviour which is characterised by making the inappropriate and unwelcome sexual
remark or the physical advances at professional or the social situation is regarded as the sexual
harassment. There has been the law for preventing the sexual harassment at workplace under the
Sex Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act but recently, due to rise in the cases of
harassment, a specific piece of legislation is been made which defines the harassment as
unlawful.
Under Equality Act of 2010, sexual harassment is the form of unlawful discrimination
which states that if any behaviour is meant to violate the dignity of other or creates the hostile,

intimidation, humiliating, degrading or the offensive environment, it is referred to as the sexual
harassment. It may include the sexual comments or the jokes, sending emails with the sexual
content, physical behaviour which includes unwelcome sexual advances, touching and other
forms of sexual assault.
In a case scenario, Shanaz has been employed as the solicitor in Braxton Plc and she has
been assigned the case of People United in order to represent the case. Kelly works as
administrator for People Union which is a top company of magazine in Bristol. The company
have mostly the male staff and dew female staff. At break, Kelly is making the cup of tea and
Mark, an employee walks in and stats the conversation with her and then moves on to make the
personal making sexual comments for her. She gets upset and ask her to stop but he continues
but he find the reaction of Kelly amusing. She comes out of the room crying and move to senior
management in order to report the incident. The senior manager laughs at the complaint and
says its normal and men do such things. Kelly is not shocked to see the lack of support and is
absent due to stress from the work.
Under this scenario, Kelly have been subject to sexual harassment as under the law of
Equality as Mark have made sexual comments to her which amounts of sexual harassment.
Section 26 of the Equality Act, 2010 defines three specific types of harassment which includes
firstly the unwanted conduct which has an aim to create the hostile, intimidating, degrading,
humiliating or offensive environment and violates the dignity of complainant, secondly the
unwanted conduct of the sexual nature and thirdly treating someone less favourable because they
have rejected or submitted the sexual harassment (Lu and et. al., 2020). So Mark is liable under
the said legislation as he has made sexual comments on her under Section 26(2) of Equality Act,
2010.
The employer have the duty to prevent the sexual harassment at workplace and must take
all reasonable steps to prevent such harassment. Under Article 10 of the European Convention on
Human Rights provides for the protection to a person on the reasonable expression of free speech
but it does not protect the speech which harasses another person (Ding, Loukaitou-Sideris and
Agrawal, 2020). So in this case, Mark have made sexual comments to Kelly which is prohibited
and does not come under freedom of speech and expression. So the senior manager is duty
obliged to take the actions to prevent such harassment at workplace. And Mark can also not take
the defence of freedom of speech as the law does not cover the speech which harasses other.

In the case of Southern v. Britannia Hotels Ltd and another, the employer have failed to
conduct the thorough investigation and the employment tribunal held that the employer did not
have a slightest interest in the case and in getting the grips about what have actually happened.
So the court did not took the defence of employer and awarded the victim with compensation
stated that there is lack lustre approach to the investigation which resulted in damages awarded
to complainant (Shakthi, 2020). So in this scenario also, senior manager did not took any action
and showed zero interest in the complaint of Kelly which shows that there is breach of duty by
employer and damages must be awarded to Kelly.
The intention of Mark to degrade the dignity of Kelly is clear as he continues to make
such sexual comments even when she asked him to stop making it. The intention makes it clear
that Mark have wanted to create the hostile, offensive and humiliating environment for Kelly by
making such sexual comments which shows that there is sexual harassment at workplace.
So Mark must be held liable for the act of sexual harassment and must be punished under
the relevant legislation and the senior manager must be held guilty for not conducting the
thorough investigation so damages must be awarded to Kelly for such non compliance.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above essay that it is very important to build the healthy relation
between the employer and employee. The employment legislations protect the employees form
harassment and promotes fairness and equality at the workplace. In the case scenario, Mark shall
be held liable for the act of passing sexual comments to Kelly which amounts to sexual
harassment and on other hand, the employer also failed to take any reasonable steps to prevent
such act and did not conduct any investigation regarding it which shows its lack of interest in
prohibiting harassment at workplace. Under section 26(2) of the Equality Act, Mark shall be held
liable for sexual harassment as he has clear intention to create the hostile, offensive and
degrading environment for Kelly which amounts to sexual harassment. It is the right of the
employee to have safe working environment.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ding, H., Loukaitou-Sideris, A. and Agrawal, A.W., 2020. Sexual harassment and assault in
transit environments: A review of the English-language literature. Journal of Planning
Literature. 35(3). pp.267-280.
Harrison, E.D., Fox, C.L. and Hulme, J.A., 2020. Student anti-bullying and harassment policies
at UK universities. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. 42(5).
pp.547-562.
Lu, L and et. al., 2020. Worldwide prevalence of sexual harassment towards nurses: A
comprehensive meta‐analysis of observational studies. Journal of advanced
nursing. 76(4). pp.980-990.
Samora and et. al., 2020. Harassment, discrimination, and bullying in orthopaedics: a work
environment and culture survey. JAAOS-Journal of the American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons. 28(24). pp.e1097-e1104.
Shakthi, S., 2020. The law, the market, the gendered subject: workplace sexual harassment in
Chennai’s information technology industry. Gender, Place & Culture. 27(1). pp.34-51.