2024-01-11 09:05:52
A U.K. police officer who was harassed and forced by male colleagues to strip down to her underwear for an exercise has won more than $1.3 million in a discrimination lawsuit against her former employer.
“I am sorry that more was not done sooner to address the serious issues raised by Ms Kalam and I apologize for the significant impact these had on her which was highlighted in court,” Scott Green, deputy chief of police in the West Midlands of the United Kingdom, apologized on Wednesday, according to the BBC.
Just a few months after the labor court awarded the equivalent of more than $50,000 Canadian to police officer Rebecca Kalam, her complaint for harassment and sexual discrimination against her ex-employer ended with a second victory on Wednesday, so that the court ruled in his favor across the board.
The detective inspector, who was one of seven women in the 250-man firearms unit, had suffered poor treatment within the team, whose culture she described as “toxic and discriminatory” before the labor court in November.
Shortly after her arrival in 2012, she was allegedly forced to undress for training where her colleagues cut off her clothes under the pretext of wanting to provide her with first aid, the judge heard.
“I had the ambition and the drive to progress through the ranks, up to the position of Chief Constable, and I was on track to do so. One of the reasons I stayed in the department was to try to change the culture from within,” she previously said, according to the British media.
This time, the decision to grant him compensation of 820,000 pounds sterling, the equivalent of more than 1.3 million Canadian dollars for loss of income and pension, was “unanimous”, according to the BBC.
The police force also reportedly confirmed that three officers would be subject to suspension, and that disciplinary proceedings would be underway for ten others.
“If we can’t even protect our own inside the organization, how can we, frankly, be honest and [dire] protect the public, if this is how we behave internally?”, commented Paul Odle, of the Metropolitan Police Federation, to the BBC.
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