Engineer wins £175,000 over homophobic emails and ‘limp-wristed gestures’

Aerospace engineer, Peter Allen, said he hopes the ruling will make other companies 'wake up' and take homophobia in the workplace more seriously.

An aerospace engineer has won an employment tribunal with a £175,000 payout after he faced a ‘whirlwind of torment’ after coming out as gay at work.

Peter Allen, 41, was due to take over as the general manager at the Burnley site of aerospace component manufacturer Paradigm Precision, when ‘everything changed’ in 2018.

The engineer, who had worked at the company for six years, came out to a ‘select’ number of people in his team, as well as his HR director, and confided that he and his husband were looking into adoption. 

Mr Allen claimed he was subsequently passed over for promotion and faced derogatory emails and post-it notes, along with colleagues making ‘limp-wristed hand gestures’.

He said he went from being a respected senior member of staff to being ‘excluded and isolated’ and was ‘devastated’ he had to leave behind a career he loved.

Mr Allen told Pink News: ‘I’d taken a leap of faith to come out at work, and all this horribleness was evolving in front of me.

‘It was almost as if my worst nightmares about coming out at work were happening. I was in a whirlwind of torment.’

He originally looked into adoption leave but eventually left the company and launched a legal case for harassment and unfair dismissal, which he won last month.

The tribunal ruled that Mr Allen had been ‘subject to harassment related to sexual orientation’ in the workplace, while Judge Mark Leach said he didn’t receive the promotions ‘because he sought to take additional adoption leave’.

Speaking of his decision to leave the job following harassment, he said: ‘A heterosexual couple thinking of starting a family would have just never have been in the same situation that I was. I was forced to choose between whether we become parents or whether I had a job, which is ultimately what it came down to.’

Mr Allen was given £174,645, including £96,645 for breaches of the Equality Act and £23,873 for unfair dismissal two years after leaving the company.

Speaking after the tribunal win, Mr Allen said he was ‘elated’ and was glad he put his ‘faith in the judicial system’.

He said he hopes the ruling makes companies ‘wake up and take these things more seriously’ and allow employees to be themselves.

Metro.co.uk has approached Paradigm Precision.

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