A personal assistant was pestered for sex and asked to organise orgies by diplomats at the Qatari embassy in London, an employment tribunal heard.
Deanne Kingson, 58, was driven to the brink of suicide by a ‘spiteful and vindictive’ campaign of sexual and religious discrimination at the Gulf state’s headquarters in Mayfair.
Mrs Kingson – who has now been awarded a £390,000 compensation payout – was targeted by senior staff because she was not a Muslim and was seen as being ‘liable or willing to engage in sexual conduct with male employees’, the London tribunal heard.
Deanne Kingson, 58, worked as a personal assistant at the Qatari embassy in London between 2006 and 2014. She has received a £390,000 pay out after being fired from her role
Executive ambassador Fahed Al-Mushairi was so desperate to take Mrs Kingson to bed, the tribunal heard, that he regularly invited her to chew khat – an Arabian plant and stimulant – at his penthouse flat in the hope she would become sexually aroused.
He made ‘persistent’ sexual advances towards her, including making humiliating and degrading sexual suggestions.
When she refused his demands, Al-Mushairi turned his attentions towards Mrs Kingson’s 19-year-old daughter, the tribunal was told.
On one occasion, he spoke to the teenager ‘in a sleazy way’, wrapping his gown around her and asking her mother to take a photo.
Over four years, Al-Mushairi badgered Mrs Kingson about taking her daughter on shopping trips to Paris to ‘buy her anything she wanted’ and even suggested he marry the teenager so they could have sex without breaching strict Islamic law.
The outside of the Qatari embassy in London. The London employment tribunal heard how staff considered Ms Kingson to be ‘liable or willing to engage in sexual contact with male employees’ because she was not a muslim
The court was also told another diplomat, Ali Al Harjri, put pressure on Mrs Kingson to organise sex parties for him and tried to persuade her to go on holiday with him to Cuba.
Mrs Kingson, who is British, worked at the Qatari embassy between July 2006 and June 2014, earning around £30,000 a year. She is bilingual and can speak fluent Arabic.
She spent years turning down diplomats’ advances and was repeatedly threatened with the sack before eventually being fired without holiday pay in June 2014.
Judge Gill Brown awarded Mrs Kingson more than £115,000 for injury to feelings and psychiatric distress.
She accepted Mrs Kingson had felt fear, humiliation and shame throughout her eight years’ service and was regularly reduced to tears, both during and after the working day.
As a single mother of two dependent children, she felt unable to leave her job, but her treatment caused her to become mentally ill.
The tribunal heard that Mrs Kingson suffered sleepless nights, a loss of appetite and was ultimately diagnosed with clinical depression, leading her to contemplate suicide.
Judge Brown said: ‘I found she was subjected to humiliating treatment which violated her dignity and made her feel outraged and degraded and that she was insulted throughout her employment.
‘The claimant was a relatively junior employee and the treatment was carried out by much more senior members of the diplomatic staff at the embassy.
‘It involved suggesting to the claimant that her daughter be married for sexual purposes to an older man…The treatment of [Mrs Kingson] was disrespectful of her sex and the difference in her religion and belief.
‘I decided that the treatment was appropriately described as high-handed, malicious, insulting or oppressive.’ She also said the treatment was ‘spiteful and vindictive’.
The judge awarded Mrs Kingson £390,000 in total – including £173,000 for loss of earnings and £1,250 for missing holiday pay.
The Qatari government was not represented at the tribunal and did not engage in the proceedings, Judge Brown said. This was ‘unreasonable’ and they must pay Mrs Kingson’s £7,000 legal costs, the judge added.