The top of the British Council in Italy has gained an unfair dismissal case after he was wrongly fired over unfounded claims he drunkenly groped a feminine embassy employee’s breasts whereas giving an ‘Italian farewell’ at a celebration.
Paul Sellers was accused of kissing the girl on the lips and ‘stroking’ her breasts with two fingers when she left a Christmas social gathering he hosted at his flat in Rome.
The revered envoy – whose spouse and youngsters had been subsequent to him on the time – denied giving her something aside from a kiss on every cheek within the conventional Italian method, often called a ‘saluto’.
However after she complained of sexual harassment, he was subjected to a ‘critically flawed’ investigation and sacked from his senior position after 30 years’ service.
Paul Sellers was wrongly accused of kissing the girl on the lips and ‘stroking’ her breasts with two fingers when she left a Christmas social gathering he hosted at his flat in Rome
An employment tribunal concluded that investigators ignored proof, dismissed the accounts of six witnesses who noticed nothing untoward, and as an alternative selected to consider the ‘hazy’ account of the girl regardless of admitting they weren’t ‘100 per cent certain what occurred’.
Now, Mr Sellers has efficiently sued the British Council for unfair dismissal and is because of obtain compensation.
The listening to in central London heard Mr Sellers was appointed British Council nation director for Italy in 2014 – a publish that often comes with an £80,000 wage – and lived in Rome along with his spouse Isadora Papadrakakis.
Round 50 folks attended the Christmas social gathering he threw on December 16, 2018, and the tribunal heard Mr Sellers drank ‘two or three’ glasses of wine and was seen dancing.
His accuser, named solely as ‘ZZ’, mentioned goodbye to Mr Sellers within the kitchen space round 4.30pm as she left and the following day alleged she was sexually harassed.
ZZ, who mentioned Mr Sellers was ‘fairly drunk’, claimed: ‘At about 4:30 pm because the social gathering was winding down I made a decision to depart and I went to thank Paul.
‘As I went to kiss him goodbye he kissed me twice on the facet of my mouth (reasonably than the cheek) after which he stroked my breasts with each his fingers.
‘I used to be very shocked so I did not reply instantly and left the social gathering. There have been different folks within the room however I have no idea in the event that they witnessed it.’
After the grievance was made, Ken O’Flaherty, the embassy’s deputy head of mission, mentioned the alleged groping was ‘clearly deliberate’ and even mentioned Mr Sellers had been ‘erratic and uncharacteristically emotional’ in latest months and warranted investigation.
Mr O’Flaherty added: ‘ZZ judges that Paul was ”fairly drunk”. He had beforehand being salsa dancing with a feminine intern…
‘Paul often drinks at skilled/social occasions. I’ve not seen him incapacitated, however he does present the impact of alcohol and consumes extra of it than many colleagues.’
Mr Sellers was left shocked when knowledgeable concerning the allegations and vehemently denied them.
‘Folks would get a kiss on each cheeks’, he instructed investigators as he defined he was busy giving Italian farewell greetings – salutos – to folks as they left his flat, including that he had ‘no particular recollection’ of claiming bye to ZZ.
His spouse mentioned ZZ was ‘new and not likely built-in into the embassy’ and ‘had the impression ZZ was not in excessive spirits’.
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Ms Papadrakakis was ‘sure Mr Sellers would not lay a hand on [ZZ], believed ZZ was ‘disgruntled about embassy work’ and mentioned ‘she could also be conservative concerning the Italian type of greeting’.
Deputy chief govt of the British Council, Kate Ewart-Biggs, headed-up the investigation which led to Mr Sellers’ dismissal in Could 2019.
However the tribunal discovered Ms Ewart-Biggs took a ‘slim view’ of the incident, did not discover the alleged contact and the circumstances surrounding it, made no try and interview doable witnesses and assumed no one else noticed it.
She accepted ZZ’s account despite the fact that it had modified all through the investigation, the panel concluded. Textual content messages which will have backed up her claims had been additionally not sought by investigators.
Ms Ewart-Biggs mentioned: ‘I discovered the allegation to be true. I had no cause to consider that ZZ was mendacity or had a motive to take action.
‘I listened to the numerous influence it had had on her, her wellbeing and her nervousness ranges.
‘I had spoken to each her and Mr Sellers… In essence, I requested myself whether or not I believed ZZ or Mr Sellers.
‘I discovered that on the steadiness of possibilities, I did consider ZZ and I didn’t consider Mr Sellers.
‘I accepted that I used to be by no means going to be 100 per cent certain about what had occurred.’
Mr Sellers offered witness statements to again up his model of occasions on the enchantment stage – however his case was thrown out by Sir Ciarán Devane, then head of the Council.
One onlooker, Monica Marziota, who was subsequent to the pair as they mentioned goodbye, mentioned she noticed a ‘fully regular Italian farewell greeting or ‘saluto’ ‘.
She mentioned: ‘They exchanged a number of phrases, smiling, after which mentioned goodbye with a kiss on every cheek adopted by a hug.
‘The restricted bodily contact was transient, pleasant and simple.
‘The interplay befell in direct proximity and clear view of numerous different visitors together with two of Paul’s youngsters… not a single one in every of whom appeared to register something remotely uncommon.’
However Miss Marziota’s account – together with proof from 5 different witnesses – was not thought-about, the tribunal heard.
Employment Choose Graeme Hodgson slammed the British Council’s investigation and dominated Mr Sellers had been unfairly dismissed.
Choose Hodgson mentioned: ‘On this case, the investigation is characterised by severe oversights and unreasonable assumptions.
‘No cheap employer would have failed to hunt the related contemporaneous documentation, or to discover the circumstances of the alleged assault, or to hunt related proof from witnesses to the alleged incident.
‘It follows that when contemplating whether or not there have been grounds to help the assumption, I conclude that Ms Ewart-Biggs took a slim view and failed to think about the related surrounding circumstances.
‘Ms Ewart-Biggs’ made her determination primarily based on her opinion of who was telling the reality… It was clear that she primarily based that call on a really slim view of the proof.
‘The proof [from witnesses], on its face, is related, clear, and compelling. If that proof had been accepted by the British Council, I can see no rational foundation on which it might proceed to search out there had been a sexual assault, as described by ZZ.
‘Sir Ciarán Devane’s suggestion that the proof was not ‘on its face is compelling that the conclusion of the investigation was a mistake’ is unsustainable.’
Compensation might be awarded to Mr Sellers at a later date.