Courts

Workplace ‘really dangerous’ after how alleged sexual assault handled, WRC told

Lecturer described former colleague at training firm as ‘a real threat to women’

The woman said the man started coming into her classroom uninvited and leering as she delivered a lecture

Stephen Bourke
Thu Oct 13 2022 - 15:08

A lecturer who said she was sexually assaulted by a colleague at a further education centre has accused her former employer of mishandling her complaint and failing to protect her from further harassment by the man.

She told the Workplace Relations Commission earlier this week the man started by coming into her classroom uninvited and leering as she delivered a lecture on April 27th last year.

Then, when she bent over to help a student with a piece of equipment, the man went behind her and sexually assaulted her by putting his hands on her hips and pushing his genitals into her, she told the tribunal.

The alleged perpetrator told an internal investigation he “stumbled and put his hands on her and apologised” while trying to pass her in the classroom, the hearing was told.

READ MORE

She described glancing down to see the “white knuckles” of one of his hands as he gripped her.

“I froze — I felt him push into me. All I could feel were his private parts pushed up against my behind. I don’t really remember what happened next,” she said.

Katherine Ryan was giving evidence to the WRC in connection with her statutory complaints under the Employment Equality Act and the Health, Safety and Welfare at Work Act against Socrates Workforce Solutions Ltd.

She alleges the firm discriminated against her by way of sexual harassment and victimisation over the alleged sexual assault and the company’s investigation of the matter and allegedly failing to protect her from further harassment by the man — claims denied by the company.

The hearing on Monday was attended by three directors of the firm: Ms Ryan’s line manager Thomas Maher, James Kearney — who investigated her first complaint — and Paul Comiskey who, after a disciplinary investigation carried out and decided upon by Mr Kearney,  delivered a written warning as a sanction to the alleged perpetrator.

The company accepts the employee sexually harassed Ms Ryan by inappropriately touching her on April 27th 2021 — but submitted that it “did not reach the level” alleged.

In her evidence, Ms Ryan said she did not initially want to see the other employee sacked over the incident, as the company’s legal team had suggested, but that she was hoping for a commitment not to repeat the behaviour.

‘No apology’

Instead, she said she was troubled by comments by the man reproduced verbatim in the investigation report which criticised her for making the complaint and demanding she be sanctioned for him.

“Not only was there no apology, he showed no remorse. He said he had done nothing wrong and James [Kearney] and Tom [Maher] had said he’d done nothing wrong and he was looking for me to apologise,” Ms Ryan said.

“No one’s ever apologised to me,” she said.

CCTV footage of the alleged sexual assault was screened for the adjudicating officer, John Harraghy.

Solicitor Sinead Finnerty, who appeared for the company, put it to Ms Ryan that the man she alleged had sexually assaulted her, had moved past her in the time it took for the time code on the CCTV footage to advance from 1 minute 49 seconds to 1 minute 50 seconds.

“It feels much longer when you’re there. You hear of people dying from one punch to the head,” she said.

Ms Finnerty also questioned why Ms Ryan had taken a lift home from the premises with the alleged perpetrator on the same evening as the incident.

The complainant said she “wanted to challenge him”.

“All I can remember is sitting in the car and wanting to get out. It’s only a minute or two,” she said.

She said she was “just trying to smooth things over” when she sought a meeting the man and “keep it as amicable as possible”.

The company director who investigated Ms Ryan’s complaints, James Kearney, gave evidence on the process he followed and said: “We found that there was alleged unprofessional behaviour. He was rude. We did see there was sexual harassment. There was a touch of his hand.”

Ms Ryan’s barrister Lars Asmussen put it to him that he had made a finding that there was “no evidence” that the perpetrator had put both his hands on Ms Ryan’s hips.

“You did have evidence. You had the complainant’s own verbal evidence,” he said.

“Okay, I agree, I probably worded that wrongly,” Mr Kearney said.

Mr Kearney said he had carried out the disciplinary investigation and decided upon a written warning as a sanction, which was delivered by Mr Comiskey, the third director.

“Why was it more appropriate to give an [initial] written warning rather than a final [one],” Mr Asmussen asked.

“I’ve no answer to that. I just made the call,” Mr Kearney replied.

Mr Kearney confirmed the company did not apologise to Ms Ryan at any point or tell the other employee not to repeat the behaviour.

She went out on sick leave from June 15th 2021, with her doctor citing “stress and trauma”.

Transfer

Ms Ryan said that in discussions with her bosses on returning to work, she was offered the options of teaching maths and electronics at another location, 30 minutes further away from her original workplace by road; switching to working weekends and nights, or keeping the status quo and working on the same site, which would have brought her into contact with the other employee.

“I said I didn’t want to be moved or transferred. [Thomas Maher] said he didn’t want to transfer [the other employee],” she said.

Before her resignation, she said that the other employee had viewed her profile on LinkedIn, causing her to receive a notification with his name and profile picture; and that she had received “multiple strange texts” from him, which she had referred to gardaí.

She said Mr Maher’s response was: “We’ll leave that to the guards,” adding that she had sent copies of her screenshots to the firm but was never asked to participate in any investigation.

She said she had not been aware of any investigation into the matter, other than being asked to provide screenshots.

The tribunal was told the second employee resigned voluntarily in late 2021.

“I think he’s really dangerous and a real threat to women,” Ms Ryan said, adding that she thought her former place of work was “still really dangerous” in light of how her complaint had been handled.

In closing, Mr Asmussen said the directors of the firm “made an absolute hames” of investigating the matter and meted out only a “light punishment” to the man in question.

“He called her a liar, threatened to sue her and said she should be dismissed,” Mr Asmussen said of the remarks.

“Despite a finding that one employee had sexually harassed another employee, the company took no action to prevent it recurring,” Mr Asmussen said.

“There’s acceptance up to the thrust but not the thrust itself,” said Mr Asmussen. “I’d say there’s ample evidence that the thrust did occur.”

He said the investigation had not been adequate and that the company could not satisfy the requirements of the law to defend the claim.

“It’s abundantly clear that Mr Kearney was clearly not appropriately trained to carry out the investigation. He accepted he had never carried out an investigation into a sexual harassment claim before,” he said, adding that the investigation was “flawed in many ways too lengthy to outline” in his concluding remarks.

He said that the firm had never contacted his client about the investigation the directors said had taken place into her second harassment complaint and argued that this was because it “never started”.

“Even if the perpetrator does leave, there’s still a requirement to conduct an investigation,” he said.

His client’s case was ultimately that she was left with no choice except to resign.

He said the investigation had reached an “irrational outcome” and that Mr Kearney, the director in charge of it, had now accepted Ms Ryan had herself given evidence and that “perhaps he misspoke” in his conclusion that there was no evidence.

Ms Finnerty said her clients had done what was required of them by law by taking “such steps as are reasonably practical” in the circumstances.

“Mr Kearney has said he did his best to apply the procedures ... Was it perfect in nature? Possibly not. Was there an attempt made? Yes,” she said.

She noted that the complainant had admitted being “too polite” in her evidence and said: “Maybe that was to her detriment.”

The only outcome which would ultimately have been accepted by Ms Ryan, counsel submitted, was the dismissal of the perpetrator.

“It was the decision of my clients that the sexual harassment did not reach the level Ms Ryan stated,” she said.

She said that it was unreasonable of the complainant to say she had no alternative but to resign when the grievance process was “open to her”.

Having heard over eight hours of evidence and legal argument in the case over the course of the day, the adjudicating officer Mr Harraghy thanked the parties for their contributions and closed the hearing.

He said he would issue his decision in due course.

LATEST STORIES