Former Barclays director, Robert Record, who was dismissed in September 2020 for gross misconduct and sexual harassment, is suing the bank for more than £584,600. He claims that the
female colleagues who accused him of inappropriate conduct fabricated the allegations and that his dismissal was unfair. Record, once a senior wealth manager overseeing assets worth £580m, says the most serious allegations never happened, including claims that he inappropriately touched a female colleague. He also claims that his witnesses, who could have corroborated his concerns about women colluding against him, were not interviewed during the internal investigations. However, Barclays rejects his allegations, citing “unwelcome physical contact with a female colleague, sexual harassment of another colleague and language and behaviour which reasonably could be taken to be a racial slur” as reasons for his dismissal.
Record’s case includes a claim for lost past and future earnings, deferred bonuses, pension benefit and injury to feelings. His lawyer, Richard Hignett, has questioned whether Barclays staff properly tested the credibility of complainants during the investigation. Meanwhile, Barclays' lawyer, Ed Williams, argued that female employees believed they were being subjected to poor behaviour at the bank and were upset by it. He also asked whether Record saw the point that if senior men are sexual harassers, then female members of staff would want to get rid of them.
According to documents available at the East London Employment Tribunal, Record, aged 46, alleges that female colleagues conspired against him and encouraged a former co-worker to raise a grievance against him as part of a collective objective to remove him. He claims that he and others saw the group of women in meetings and believed that they had been “cooking up the charge sheet”. Record alleges that he was unable to defend himself properly during the internal investigation and that his dismissal was unfair and disproportionate.
The allegations against Record ranged from excluding a female staff member from a scavenger hunt to behaving in an intimidating way, staring at a woman’s breasts, and inappropriately touching a female colleague. However, Record denies all the allegations. The bank declined to comment further on Thursday.
The case highlights the ongoing issue of sexual harassment in the workplace and the importance of companies’ handling of allegations. Barclays, like many other banks, has had to address sexual harassment claims and improve its internal procedures. In 2018, a whistleblower wrote an anonymous letter to CEO Jes Staley that accused a senior executive of bullying and harassment, leading to an investigation by regulators and an £642m fine for the bank. Photo by Reading Tom from Reading, UK, Wikimedia commons.