Woman sexually harassed after being touched at Christmas party wins €23,000

An employ­ment court has ruled around €23,000 on a woman who was sex­u­al­ly harassed for hav­ing her but­tocks touched and com­ments made about her breasts at a Christ­mas party.

Shirley Lyons, who worked as a design­er and sales con­sul­tant for Star­plan in North­ern Ire­land from June 2013 to April 2018, said she received unwant­ed sex­u­al atten­tion at a par­ty in 2017.

Ms. Lyons’ sex­u­al harass­ment com­plaint and her vic­tim­iza­tion com­plaint were par­tial­ly upheld, and the court pan­el found that her wrong­ful dis­missal com­plaint was well-found­ed, but not the rest of the com­plaint. She was award­ed €22,735.

Her appeal was upheld by the Equal­i­ty Commission.

The court report­ed that Ms. Lyons had a good rela­tion­ship with her col­leagues at her workplace.

She was the only female employ­ee to attend the com­pa­ny’s Christ­mas par­ty at the Star­plan show­room in Por­ta­d­own on Decem­ber 16, 2017, along with six oth­er male employees.

Lyons said she received unwant­ed sex­u­al atten­tion when her par­ty moved to a restaurant.

The court found that one of her col­leagues com­ment­ed on Lyons’ breasts and cleav­age, and that she hugged her from behind with­out her consent.

She also sug­gest­ed that she might have an affair at a restau­rant and touched her buttocks.

The court was sat­is­fied that “these facts fall under words and phys­i­cal acts of a sex­u­al nature.”

In court, on Decem­ber 20, 2017, Lyons report­ed to her line man­ag­er that she had been sex­u­al­ly harassed by her colleague.

Sev­en days lat­er she filed a for­mal writ­ten complaint.

After her com­plaint, the court reviewed Ms Lyons’ series of com­plaints that she had been harmed by three of her colleagues.

Among oth­er things, they ignored and exclud­ed her, threat­ened to “put her down,” and direct­ed her intim­i­dat­ing and abu­sive behav­ior against her, accord­ing to the court.

Lyons retired from the com­pa­ny in April 2018.

The case was heard in 2018, but the anonymiza­tion order was can­celed in Jan­u­ary 2023 due to Lyons’ appeal.

“I am hap­py that the tri­al is over,” Lyons said.

“I am also pleased that the court has agreed to lift the anonymi­ty order.” It is impor­tant to allow me to speak freely about that night and what hap­pened afterward.

“We were on a night out and, as usu­al for years, we were shocked and upset by what had happened.

“At first I was deter­mined not to let him ruin my night and did every­thing I could to make it clear that I had had enough of the act, but it end­ed up being a very bad expe­ri­ence. I’m sorry.