A woman who tried to sue her boss for sexual harassment has been ordered to pay £15,000, after her bid failed.
Emma Hennell-Whittington was a personal assistant for Peter Metcalfe, who was the owner of a nationwide haulage company. She let him believe she was interested in pursuing a romantic relationship, despite being engaged. She worked 10 hours a week for a salary of £30,000.
Ms Hennell-Whittington also received gifts worth tens of thousands of pounds including a Volkswagen Tiguan car and a Honda Civic. Mr Metcalfe also paid for her to have Botox beauty treatments and even offered to cover the £45,000 cost of buying out her fiance’s share of a house where she lived with her teenage daughter from another relationship, the Daily Mail reports.
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Emma Hennell-Whittington sued her boss
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In a judgment published following an employment tribunal last May, it read that Ms Hennell-Whittington “did not, at any stage until the breakdown of the employment relationship, inform him she was not interested romantically”. Only when “the penny finally began to drop” for Mr Metcalfe, the tribunal heard, “he felt humiliated”.
Mr Metcalfe, who had repeatedly declared his love for Ms Hennell-Whittington, the tribunal heard, terminated her employment five days later. Her subsequent claims of sex discrimination and harassment related to sex were dismissed, and she has now been ordered to pay Mr Metcalfe’s haulage firm £15,000 in legal costs.
An employment judge said Ms Hennell-Whittington knew the case would ‘embarrass’ her former employer. They previously ruled Ms Hennell-Whittington had encouraged Mr Metcalfe’s affection as part of a “transactional” relationship that afforded her a lifestyle she “could not reasonably expect” in any other job.
Judge Kirti Jeram said: “Before the employment relationship commenced, there was nothing at all to prevent [her] from simply informing [him] that his affection for her was misplaced and unwanted. We reject [her] case that [his] affections for her grew in a vacuum, without any reciprocation, encouragement or input from her. We characterise her conduct towards [him] as being transactional in nature.”