A supervisor at a contract cleaning firm who said he was “falsely” accused of sexual harassment and sacked has won his job back nearly two years on from his dismissal.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) made the reinstatement order against Sodexo Ireland Ltd after ruling it had breached the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 by relying on “flawed procedures and hearsay evidence” when it dismissed the worker, Nkemka Patrick Okachi, in February, 2023.
Sexual harassment findings were made against Mr Okachi despite the fact that none of the three senior managers who made decisions during the process of investigation, disciplinary hearing and appeal actually saw the CCTV footage of the incident, the WRC noted.
At a hearing last month, the WRC heard Mr Okachi was suspended by his line manager after an encounter with a female receptionist who worked for a client company of Sodexo’s at a gym on January 11th, 2023.
Mr Okachi’s evidence to the tribunal was that he had not seen the woman since before the Covid-19 pandemic when he met her that day. He said they had a “jovial and upbeat” conversation about going to the gym – and denied that there was “anything of a sexual nature about it”.
He said he was a “married man”, WRC adjudicator Úna Glazier-Farmer noted.
“He said he complimented her, and she gave him a hug at the end of the conversation,” the adjudicator noted. Mr Okachi’s evidence was that he gave the woman a “one-shoulder hug” as he “did not feel comfortable as she was wearing gym clothing”.
The following day, January 12th, 2023, Mr Okachi arrived to work and told by his manager, Cliff O’Neill, that there was a complaint against him.
When Mr Okachi asked for a copy of the CCTV footage, Mr O’Neill’s response was that the allegation was “not based on camera footage”, the complainant told the WRC. Then he was suspended, the WRC heard.
In answer to questions put to him under cross-examination, Mr Okachi accepted that he put his hand on the woman’s shoulder and said: “You can check it on the camera,” the tribunal heard.
Mr Okachi said he never saw any CCTV footage of the interaction with the woman at the gym. Under cross-examination, he said he had raised “previous difficulties with the receptionist” in response to her witness statement. He said he was “depressed” about the allegation.
Adrian Nix, an area support manager with Sodexo, said an “incident” had been reported to Sodexo by the human resources department of the client firm. He said Mr Okachi made admissions that accorded with what the woman had alleged and that he had “concern” about the complainant putting his hand on her shoulder.
“We felt he had a case to answer,” Mr Nix said, viewing it as a breach of Sodexo’s dignity at work policy.
However, the investigator accepted he never had access to CCTV footage of the incident, which was “the property of the client”, and only had the statement of the complainant’s line manager, Mr O’Neill, about what he saw in the footage. Mr O’Neill did not appear before the tribunal, the adjudicator noted.
The company investigation report concluded that the evidence was “not completely conclusive as to what happened and what was said”, Ms Glazier-Farmer noted. However, it recommended disciplinary action anyway, she noted.
Sodexo client relationship manager Brenda Flaherty decided to dismiss Mr Okachi on the basis that the complainant “accepted he put his arm around the woman’s shoulder and made inappropriate comments”. She said she did not get a copy of the CCTV and made her decision only on the basis of Mr Okachi’s statements to the investigator.
A divisional support manager at Sodexo, Billy Perkins, heard Mr Okachi’s dismissal appeal. He said the process followed was “robust” and that he was satisfied there had been sexual harassment.
He said Mr Okachi “didn’t see anything wrong” and that the client company had been “extremely upset” about the incident.
Mr Perkins said he “pushed” the client company to release the CCTV footage, but that the client “was not providing it”. However, he said he “trusted” what the claimant’s supervisor had told him about the content of the footage.
He also accepted that he had “undocumented conversations” with Mr O’Neill and the client about the CCTV, the WRC noted.
In her decision, adjudicator Úna Glazier-Farmer said it was the complainant’s evidence that he was unfairly dismissed after being falsely accused of sexual harassment.
She noted that Mr Okachi’s supervisor, Mr O’Neill, “did not appear at the hearing to explain his decision to suspend the complainant [or] to invoke the disciplinary procedure”.
She called the suspension by Mr O’Neill a “knee-jerk” reaction, and noted that there was “no request” from the woman who made the complaint not to work with Mr Okachi. She also called it “concerning” that the client company refused to hand over the CCTV while also looking for updates on the investigation.
The fact that nobody involved in the investigation raised the lack of CCTV as an issue raised “serious questions about the objective fairness of the investigation”.
“While the standard for workplace investigation is not perfection, it does go beyond merely populating template documents without any objective independent thought and consideration for [the worker’s] version of events.”
This was “even more significant” for accusations like the one Mr Okachi faced because of the “lasting impact” it could have on his reputation,” she added.
“This investigation was neither fair nor independent, and the decision to dismiss the complainant was based on flawed procedures and hearsay evidence. This failure has not only resulted in the loss of the complainant’s employment of eight years, but has also damaged his reputation,” Ms Glazier-Farmer wrote.
She added that the sacking was “entirely disproportionate” given the “lack of evidence” against Mr Okachi and made an order for his reinstatement “on the same terms and conditions as those held prior to his unfair dismissal”.
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