Teen waitress awarded £11,500 after being sworn at over dropped apple crumble

A 15-year-old waitress has been awarded £11,500 after she was sworn at by senior staff in a hotel after dropping an apple crumble.

An employment tribunal held in August heard Daniesha Charles, who was working part-time at the Royal Thurso Hotel, was subjected to a “tirade of abuse” by a chef, and general manager Andy Woodcock.

The then 15-year-old claimed that after she dropped the apple crumble, both were in “my face, shouting and swearing at me.”

She said the confrontation, in June 2024, “violated her dignity” and created an “intimidating, hostile, degrading and humiliating and offensive environment” for her as a “vulnerable 15-year-old British Caribbean female”.

Daniesha also said she felt “intimidated, afraid and nervous” after being sworn at by the chef for struggling to hold a hot plate without adequate hand protection.

The tribunal found that Ms Charles, who has severe dyslexia, also faced discrimination over misspelling the word porridge on a breakfast order.

In late May 2024, after presenting the order to the chef with the misspelling, Ms Charles was told: “that’s not how you f****** spell porridge.”

The tribunal said the waitress found the chef’s conduct to be “aggressive, intimidating and most upsetting” and that she felt “humiliated and embarrassed” by the fact that her inability to spell the word was shared with colleagues.

It found she had informed the hotel’s general manager of her severe dyslexia at an interview on May 1, 2024.

In a document published following the tribunal, it was stated that “from the outset of her working in the Thurso Hotel, the respondent’s chef showed his contempt for the claimant, as a young female person of non-white race, by continuously referring to her in the third person as ‘that’ and ‘it’, and by frequently shouting and swearing at her.”

After the incident involving the apple crumble and being told to “get out” of the kitchen, she phoned her mother and did not return to the hotel.

On June 30, Mr Woodcock emailed Stacey Charles, her mother, to say “had we been aware of Daniesha’s anxieties and depressions before her employment we would not have put her into this style of environment.”

Mr Woodcock added that “the only option is for the hotel to finish her employment at this current time.”

Daniesha said Mr Woodcock wrongly perceived her to have anxiety and depression.

Judge Joseph d’Inverno found: “That in shouting and swearing at the claimant in the context of the “hotplate” incident, the respondent, and in addition and in particular the respondent’s Chef, personally, directly discriminated against the claimant because of each of her protected characteristics of age, and of sex, and of race in terms of section 13 of the Equality Act 2010.”

“The respondent admits shouting and swearing on the part of the Chef and Andy [the hotel manager] but denies all of the claims arising from that shouting and swearing,” the tribunal heard.

It was concluded that Daniesha be awarded £11,500 in compensation for hurt to her feelings caused by the discriminatory conduct.

She was also awarded £516 in compensation for not being provided with written particulars of employment, and £1,032 for lost wages.