Former employee awarded £125k for age slurs
A woman in her 50s who was told ‘calm down, don’t let the hormones get out of control’ by her younger male boss has been awarded £125,000.
Finance executive Louise McCabe, then 55, was involved in a ‘heated exchange’ with tech entrepreneur Jack Williams when he made the remark in a meeting, a London employment tribunal heard.
The 29-year-old boss saw older people as ‘not familiar’ with the IT business and regarded Mrs McCabe as ‘a menopausal woman’, a judge found.
Mrs McCabe, who is now 57, became a founding director and shareholder at the e-commerce firm Selazar in 2014.
In January 2020 she angered co-founder and chief technology officer Gareth Burns by emailing a customer saying that ‘techies’ have brains that are ‘wired differently’, the tribunal heard.
She apologised but there were more fireworks that April when she warned Mr Williams of unrealistic sales forecasts.
Then at an executive meeting in May, Mr Burns complained about the work of one of Mrs McCabe’s team and described her department as a ‘shambles’.
When she replied that she only had one pair of hands, Mr Williams came out with the ageist comment, she said.
Mrs McCabe later raised concerns about the mental health of the team member who Mr Burns criticised, saying they were pushed too hard.
Mr Williams removed her from the role of director while she was on holiday and then put her on gardening leave.
Mrs McCabe said a recruitment consultant told her he had been asked to find ‘a younger team member who was more in tune with a young tech start company’. She raised a formal grievance then was sacked in September, allegedly for sharing confidential information.
Tribunal judge Jillian Brown found Mrs McCabe had been a victim of unfair dismissal and age discrimination. ‘At least part of the reason for dismissal was her age,’ she said. ‘She was very upset and humiliated.’
The judge noted Mrs McCabe’s confidence was affected ‘to the extent that she often felt unable to leave the house’.
She awarded her £125,604, including £20,000 for injury to feelings.
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