Driver wrongly sacked because swearing ‘more common in North’, tribunal rules

A delivery driver was unfairly dismissed from his job an employment tribunal found, after a judge said swearing is more common in the north.

Rob Ogden had worked for wholesalers Booker Ltd in Oldham, Greater Manchester, for seven years when he was sacked after calling a colleague a “f****** mong,” his employment tribunal heard.

During the same office discussion about doughnuts, weight loss and attending a weight loss club he also told his female co-worker, “No wonder it takes you 19 weeks to lose a stone, it hasn’t taken me 19 weeks.”

The woman involved then made a complaint against Mr Ogden.

In a 19-page judgement, Judge Jetinder Shergill said such language should not be used.

However, he added: “I am satisfied that swearing should not be acceptable in a workplace, although common everyday experience, particularly in the North is that the ‘F’ word is used quite often, spoken in the public sphere.”

Mr Ogden told the tribunal in Manchester, that “mong” was used not as a reference to people with Down’s syndrome but that the word is a common Northern term referring to stupid – a definition also used in the Oxford English Dictionary.

He described the workplace culture as being “toxic” and “lawless” with lots of “banter” and mutual horseplay between staff, which could also be “jovial”.

These included references to colleagues’ weight, using the term “chubs”, chat about “fat club” and fake certificates left in the office, entitled, “Gainer of the week” with Mr Ogden’s co-worker who complained about his behaviour allegedly giving “as good as she gets”.

Judge Shergill concluded there was no real enforcement by managers of expected standards and norms in the workplace with more senior staff part of the problem.

He ruled Mr Ogden’s words during the incident in July 2023, were offensive and it was fair for his employers to undertake a disciplinary investigation against him.

But he ruled the firm then did not follow a reasonably fair procedure with the “wholesale exclusion” of the culture of the workplace ignored, before they dismissed him in October 2023.

Judge Shergill ruled: “The claimant had not been pulled up before over comments, and this likely led to a false sense of security in terms of it not being a disciplinary issue.

“The free-for-all in the office suggested the claimant was the one who was without a chair when the music stopped. There was a real sense of him being made an example of, which in the context of the free-for-all office and significant failings in process was unreasonable.”

A further hearing will take place to decide how much financial compensation Mr Ogden is entitled to having won his claim.