Analysis: Sky had no option but to make an example

Published on Tuesday 25 January 2011 18:12

ESPECIALLY in a male dominated role, as Sian Massey's is, it would be important to Sky that these remarks have not been allowed to pass without an example being made, particularly as Sky is a broadcaster and Andy Gray is in the public eye and in a trusted position.

In the case of the incident with Charlotte Jackson, whilst what he said was said off camera and not intended for broadcast, you can understand why Sky have to question if he was an appropriate person to continue in that role.

If the public found out that Sky was condoning behaviour like this, clearly this is something which could bring Sky into disrepute and potentially to a court case if it was not seen to take action.

It is a subjective test about something that an employee finds a hostile environment in which to work and the amount of compensation which a judge could potentially award is uncapped.

While compensation for injuries is uncapped, it is likely to be an award of between 3,000 and 13,000.

On top of that, if she (Jackson] resigned because of an incident of this nature and was later out of work and had loss of earnings, she could claim for that too.

A constructive dismissal payment could also be awarded in situations like this, which is akin to statutory redundancy.

But Sky Sport would want to make sure that they do not believe that is acceptable - they would want to show that they had taken reasonable steps to prevent discrimination or harassment generally.

If it was just the comments at the weekend, Sky wouldn't have such strong grounds for dismissal.

Obviously Sian Massey wasn't an employee, which makes a difference, however, his conduct then still could potentially have given Sky grounds for dismissal, if it was contrary to their equal opportunities policy.

In a case where an employee like Andy Gray is unsatisfied with a dismissal, it would be prudent for them to appeal against it. But if he could point to other employees at Sky having acted in the same manner, and had been allowed to get away with it and had not been disciplined, he may have a case.

However, given that this incident apparently happened back in December, if Charlotte Jackson has been sitting on it since then, it is clear that it is not something which has injured her too badly.

If she didn't act on it fairly quickly, she would lose the right to complain about it.

It could well already be considered by a court to have been too long, unless she has already been raising this matter internally.

• Gina Wilson is senior associate at MacRoberts in Glasgow