In an interesting case at the Employment Appeals Tribunal (“EAT”), Sheffield City Council v Norouzi, the EAT ruled that the council was liable for acts of racial harassment carried out against one of its employees by a child in a care home.
Mr Norouzi, who is Iranian, was employed by the Council as a residential social worker at a home for troubled children. From July 2006, one of the children at the home was regularly offensive to him on racial grounds, often mocking his accent and saying that he should go back home. On one occasion she even said that she would like to blow up the whole of Asia and all Asians. Increasingly upset by this behaviour, Mr Norouzi went on sick leave in June 2008 and subsequently brought a claim for harassment.
The Tribunal found that the child’s conduct clearly constituted harassment and, accordingly, the issue it had to determine was whether the council had done enough to protect Mr Norouzi from the effects of the child’s behaviour. It found that Mr Norouzi had alerted the council to the harassment and that they had let the child’s behaviour persist by not investigating the incidents and not adequately challenging the child. By February 2008 the racist abuse had been identified by the council as an issue in a work report, but they failed to deal with it even though it was on notice that more effective measures were required. Furthermore, the Tribunal found that, from April 2008, the council should have put in place more effective support mechanisms to help Mr Norouzi cope with the child’s conduct. Given all of this, the Tribunal held that the council were liable for the harassment and the council appeal.
The EAT dismissed the appeal and still found the council liable. While acknowledging that there are some environments, including prisons, care homes and some schools, where employees may be subjected to a level of harassment which cannot easily be prevented or eradicated, it was of the view that the employer is still under a duty to consider sufficient steps to protect employees as much as possible. In this case it was clear that the council could have taken steps to help Mr Norouzi and that the Tribunal had correctly identified these in its reasoning.
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