Property manager wins sexual harassment case after her bullying boss bombarded her with texts and suggested they go to his house in Turkey to do ‘all the fun stuff’

A property manager has won a sexual harassment case after her bullying boss bombarded her with texts and suggested they go to his house in Turkey to do ‘all the fun stuff’.

Frances MacDonald was left in tears and suicidal by Dilawar Khan’s around the clock messaging in which he ‘berated’ her, an employment tribunal heard.

Married Mr Khan, 47, made ‘inappropriate’ offers of dinner and spoke about satisfying his ‘sexual needs’, it was heard.

Mr Khan boasted he was ‘surrounded by ladies’, that he had a ‘very high IQ’, and said ‘I need sex when I’m stressed’.

A tribunal heard his ‘badgering, invasiveness and constant berating’ became too much for Ms MacDonald and she was left crying and experiencing suicidal thoughts.

She was set to resign when he sacked her.

However, she is now in line to receive compensation after a judge ruled she had been harassed by Mr Khan who showed a ‘lack of respect’ and ‘objectified’ women.

The tribunal heard she applied for a role as a PA and Property Manager at Alpha Property Management and Services – based in Thetford, Norfolk – in February 2021.

However, she was told he already had two ‘strong’ girls but floated the idea of training a project manager – something that would need her ‘passion and commitment’.

In April 2021 he messaged Ms MacDonald that he was ‘Surrounded by ladies and it’s hard sometimes’ because he was on ‘different worlds’.

He went on to say: ‘Don’t get me wrong I love beautiful women but the thinking and logic is very different to men. 

‘I have a very high IQ, so I’m like 200 miles per hour and my PAs struggle to keep up*Haha*So I have to slow down.’

Mr Khan arranged an interview and later texted her with positive feedback that she ‘will cope well’ with his ‘speed’.

He then offered to sponsor Ms MacDonald – who was previously in the music industry – to write a ‘sexy’ song and the team building exercises his teams had been on.

‘We will have to go to Turkey together, I have an apartment down south in the blue lagoons and we can do all the fun stuff,’ he wrote, accompanied with a tongue out emoji.

Giving evidence, Ms MacDonald said the messages were of a sexual nature and she was ‘extremely uncomfortable’ but wasn’t sure how to respond as she wanted the job.

Ms MacDonald said she was left distressed and with suicidal thoughts after she was subjected to harrasment by her boss

She was offered the job at the end of April and in a later discussion said, ‘I need sex when I’m stressed’ and that his wife sometimes ‘couldn’t cope’.

She told the panel she felt ‘disgusted’ by the exchange of messages but compelled to respond in a ‘light-hearted manner’, because she didn’t yet have a contract.

Ms MacDonald told the panel she didn’t think the suggestion of dinner had been a joke and that he only said it was to deflect from the fact that his invitation was ‘inappropriate’.

After more messages, he said he was ‘a man of action’ and didn’t like ‘winging women’.

In May 2021 Ms MacDonald signed her contract and started working, but he continued to message her in the evenings, saying ‘women are so good at excuses that I get bored’.

The panel heard throughout her first week he sent demanding messages outside of her contracted hours.

He was also ‘not happy’ she had another part-time job giving singing lessons and ‘frequently’ expressed how much he hated that his previous PA had taken on too much outside work.

After being criticised for 30 minutes, Ms MacDonald messaged him to say his treatment of had ‘reduced her to tears’.

The panel heard upon receiving the message he ‘dropped everything’ to come into the office to ‘train’ her more, but then ‘berated’ her later that day for not checking her phone and handling last minute bookings.

The following week he compared her to his old PA again, which got worse.

Ms MacDonald said ‘the badgering, invasiveness, constant berating and putting me down increased’.

As a result, her mental health declined ‘sharply’ – she couldn’t sleep, was crying, experiencing migraines and suicidal thoughts.

The panel heard she ‘dreaded’ taking calls from Mr Khan but knew she would be berated if she didn’t answer the phone.

After breaking down in tears again, her family advised her to contact ACAS.

Mr Khan continued to message her despite her telling him she was unwell.

She checked her messages to find he had dismissed her the previous evening, but was already planning to resign due to ‘bullying, derogatory comments and harassment’.

When she brought this up, Mr Khan said the claims were ‘baseless’, that he would sue for defamation and that she was ‘messing with the wrong person’.

The tribunal, held at Bury St Edmunds County Court in Suffolk, ruled Mr Khan’s messages were ‘abusive, threatening, bullying and exhortative’

The tribunal, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, ruled his messages were ‘abusive, threatening, bullying and exhortative’.

The tribunal panel concluded Ms MacDonald had been harassed related to sex when Mr Khan asked if she children before offering her the job.

The panel also ruled in her favour on claims of sexual harassment.

They concluded: ‘We accept [Ms MacDonald]’s evidence that many of Mr Khan’s messages were unwanted, which she considered humiliating and degrading but to which she felt she had to respond quickly and in a light-hearted manner in order to convince him give her the job.

‘We consider that in effect she was walking a tightrope, wanting to demonstrate her energy and enthusiasm for the job, while at the same time trying to deflect what appeared to be, amongst other things, invitations from [Mr Khan] to have dinner with him and stay with him in his apartment in Turkey and ‘do all the fun stuff’, as well as direct references to his sexual needs..’

The panel said Mr Khan’s messages indicated ‘a lack of respect towards and objectification of women’.

She also won a claim of wrongful dismissal.

A remedy hearing will take place at a later date to decide her compensation.