The tribunal in south London heard Ms Toure, a French national of African origin and Muslim, started working as a customer service consultant at the Croydon office in October 2019.
In March 2020, owing to Covid, she started working from home.
In July 2020 after difficulties claiming utility expenses, she told boss Hugh Henderson via email she had been discriminated against, “mostly because of my foreign accent and origin”, although this was ignored.
On Aug 2 2020, Mr Henderson mentioned in a meeting that it was her birthday.
“He had a practice, at that time, of keeping a list with the birthdays of each member of his team on it,” the tribunal heard.
The next day, Ms Toure emailed him saying although it had been “very kind”, she was not celebrating it for “personal reasons” and asked her details be taken off any birthday list.
Mr Henderson apologised and said he would remove it from his list.
In September 2020, Ms Toure made an informal complaint that she was feeling left out of training opportunities compared with her colleagues.
Pituitary gland tumour
She submitted a formal 11-page grievance in November 2020 which contained the training complaint and “allegations against a range of colleagues”.As a result, she was transferred to HMRC’s Canary Wharf office in London’s Docklands for six months. She was told she would have to withdraw her grievance if she wanted the transfer to be made permanent.
In June 2021 she saw occupational health, where a report found a pituitary gland tumour caused her to suffer from stress, anxiety, migraine, vertigo, loss of weight, poor sleep and low mood.
She was on sick leave from June 30 2021.
Ms Toure asked for correspondence to be by email and limited to only what was “essential”. However, in July she was sent 11 emails to check on her wellbeing as well as a birthday card in August.
In November 2021 she was warned that she faced “formal steps regarding her sickness absence”.
She then took HMRC to the tribunal, making more than 20 allegations of race and disability harassment as well as discrimination and victimisation. Ten of her claims were successful.
Employment Judge Adam Leith said: “[HMRC]’s conduct, in repeatedly contacting [Ms Toure] during the early part of her sickness absence, was unwanted.”
The judge said the “repeated contact” created a “hostile and intimidating environment” for her.
And they’re making “employment rights” stronger, aren’t they?
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