An engineering storeman sacked after saying “top of the morning to ya” in a mock Irish accent to a colleague has been awarded a five-figure sum after an employment tribunal deemed it to be an unfair dismissal.
Karl Davies, then 57, was working at a manufacturing site in Wales on August 13, 2024, when he greeted a manager, Scott Millward, in the accent while listening to Irish music.
Mr Millward, a manager at Wrexham’s Oscar Mayer ready meal manufacturing site, had been escorting a “red-headed” external auditor when the remark was made and he reported his colleague to the employer, who launched a probe into whether the comments amounted to racial harassment, the tribunal in Mold was told.
The claimant repeated the phrase multiple times, with tribunal Judge Vincent Ryan accepting that he was “effectively channelling the musical vibe”.
The judge said that Mr Davies adopted an accent in a “reprehensible” and “mocking” way and goaded Mr Millward by repeating the phrase “in a manner that Mr Millward was bound to find irritating and embarrassing”.
He said that the claimant was trying to get on Mr Millward’s nerves to get a reaction from him and to cause him embarrassment.
He added: “I find that the purpose was not to racially harass Mr Millward, and there is no evidence before me that it had the effect, either, on anyone.
“It was nevertheless blameworthy as (Mr Davies) was subordinate to Mr Millward.
“It gave rise to the disciplinary proceedings and therefore contributed to the eventual sanction.”
The claimant did not know and had not seen the auditor, who is not known or believed to be Irish, the tribunal heard.
A manager, against whom Mr Davies had an unresolved grievance, conducted the investigation into Mr Davies’s comments, the tribunal was told.
The judge wrote that Oscar Mayer’s disciplinary case was based on its perception that Mr Davies may have perceived that the auditor looked “typically Irish”.
Mr Davies’s phrase was found by his employer to amount to harassment, but neither his clean disciplinary record or 27 years of employment for the firm were taken into account, the judge found.
The tribunal ruled that the chosen investigator was not “appropriate”, witness statements were inconsistent and the probe was “largely based on assumptions”.
Mr Davies won more than £16,000 for unfair dismissal.
The judge said: “The claimant was accused of using an employment ending, reputation damaging, loss-inducing, racially motivated slur, a slur which could have created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive working environment; these are serious matters.
“On the facts peculiar to this case, I found that the dismissal was unfair, which does not mean that I approve the use of the greeting in question or the use of mock accents.”
He added that the case was “not an indication of wokeness or anti-wokeness”.
