Royal Mail manager up in court for harassment

[saru]

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Harassment conviction follows neighbour’s outburst

A Royal Mail manager harassed her neighbour and made racist comments to the man’s wife after a long-running dispute over a garage.

Christine Jones, 52, of Station Road, Ridgmont, had not got on with Alan Lawson for years, but matters came to a head on August 10, 2008. She and her husband rented a garage from Mr Lawson, an architectural engineer.

Mr Lawson and his wife Nilufar, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time, wanted to go out but claimed that the Jones’s car was blocking their exit.

After an exchange with Robert Jones, his wife Christine came out and began shouting racist comments to the Lawsons.

She said: “He had to go to what country to buy you and get you pregnant?”

When Mrs Lawson, who is of Indian and Iranian descendant, tried to explain that she was actually born in England, Jones replied ‘good for you’.

A recording of the incident made by Mr Lawson was played in court during a trial on Monday and Tuesday. Jones was found guilty of harassing Mr Lawson but she was acquitted of the harassment of Mrs Lawson and a racially aggravated public order offence.

Magistrates said that they found the comments Jones used to be racist but they could not find that they were motivated by her hostility towards foreigners.

They told her: “You are very lucky today that because of the restrictive nature of the charges we cannot find you guilty of these two offences.”

Jones said she was not racist and that she had ‘just employed an Afro-Caribbean’.

She said: “Mr Lawson had been single for a long time and he went away on holiday and then came back with a girlfriend.

“There are some men at work who have Thai brides so that was where the comment came from but I do not remember saying a lot because I had been drinking.”

As a result of the incident, Mrs Lawson remained in London with her family after giving birth because she felt insecure and scared about returning to Ridgmont.

Jones told Mr Lawson that she would paint the garage pink or blue depending on what sex their baby was and also that she would bang on the door at 5am to wake it up. She also told the police that he had been spreading malicious rumours about her around the village.

Defending her, Kate Chidgey said: “This was a neighbourly dispute which may have been at times petty and stupid but it does not amount to criminal conduct.

“Mr Lawson had motivation to make sure that he would get the Joneses out of his garage.”

Magistrates adjourned for the preparation of reports and Jones will be sentenced tomorrow.

They said they were looking at a medium level community order.

The Crown Prosecution Service has 28 days from the trial to decide if it will appeal the ruling.

[Pat Ostman]

Yep, believable.

I was told once 'Good for You' when I mentioned I had to pick my 4 year old child up from school, and could not work past my contracted hours.

Does this mean she is sacked now as she has been convicted of a criminal offence? Bet you pants if it was one of us RM would sack us.

[mailsort6]

I thought all RM managers are supposed to be diversity trained?

[norbert]

Yep, believable.

I was told once 'Good for You' when I mentioned I had to pick my 4 year old child up from school, and could not work past my contracted hours.

Does this mean she is sacked now as she has been convicted of a criminal offence? Bet you pants if it was one of us RM would sack us.

you can go and watch her scrubbing graffiti off walls and doing litter picks with a load of chavs and druggies - yet another RM manager doing community service
Know of a few BNP members that wear union jack / St George cufflinks and ties to wind Asian staff up - it will be the hardest that these managers have or will have to work in years

[saru]

Yeah, but I heard that she was transferred from another office after an alleged racist comment.

She should be sacked, but don't hold your breath.

[Pinky 1]

" Magistrates adjourned for the preparation of reports and Jones will be sentenced tomorrow.

They said they were looking at a medium level community order.

The Crown Prosecution Service has 28 days from the trial to decide if it will appeal the ruling."

Why not give her the hardest delivery in her office to do ? Get her to do the job properly, no car or running to make up time, and taking her meal reliefs.
Six months of this, all on postmans wages, would show her the other side of the coin.
She might even come out of it a better manager ..... eh ?

[DGP1]

Any other business would sack her for bringing the company into disrepute but we all know that RM don't act like a normal business (I know of an assault charge against a manager that was upheld but the only punishment was to be moved to another office).

[Pat Ostman]

Why not give her the hardest delivery in her office to do ? Get her to do the job properly, no car or running to make up time, and taking her meal reliefs.
Six months of this, all on postmans wages, would show her the other side of the coin.
She might even come out of it a better manager ..... eh ?

Not sure I agree, thats far too harsh a punishment for a poor little Manager. They'll just not be able to cope without ten of their Manager chums to help them out :(

[andy2007]

Yep, believable.

I was told once 'Good for You' when I mentioned I had to pick my 4 year old child up from school, and could not work past my contracted hours.

Does this mean she is sacked now as she has been convicted of a criminal offence? Bet you pants if it was one of us RM would sack us.

you can go and watch her scrubbing graffiti off walls and doing litter picks with a load of chavs and druggies - yet another RM manager doing community service
Know of a few BNP members that wear union jack / St George cufflinks and ties to wind Asian staff up - it will be the hardest that these managers have or will have to work in years

And it's people like them, who make things so difficult for the rest of us, who are proud to be English. A couple of people moaned, because some of us displayed the St. George Flag on our FLTs and Scuds, on St. Georges Day. That BNP lot, have turned our Flags (Union Flag/St George Flag) into symbols for their Racism.

It comes to something, when we have to be careful about showing National Pride!

[norbert]

Yep, believable.

I was told once 'Good for You' when I mentioned I had to pick my 4 year old child up from school, and could not work past my contracted hours.

Does this mean she is sacked now as she has been convicted of a criminal offence? Bet you pants if it was one of us RM would sack us.

you can go and watch her scrubbing graffiti off walls and doing litter picks with a load of chavs and druggies - yet another RM manager doing community service
Know of a few BNP members that wear union jack / St George cufflinks and ties to wind Asian staff up - it will be the hardest that these managers have or will have to work in years

And it's people like them, who make things so difficult for the rest of us, who are proud to be English. A couple of people moaned, because some of us displayed the St. George Flag on our FLTs and Scuds, on St. Georges Day. That BNP lot, have turned our Flags (Union Flag/St George Flag) into symbols for their Racism.

It comes to something, when we have to be careful about showing National Pride!

that's why there was a campaign in Voice about reclaiming St Georges Day , however with people moaning about your flags , RM will be keen to latch onto it to earn brownie points and present all this rubbish about how right on than thou ; RM are .

[andy2007]

Thankfully, there was no action taken against anyone with a flag, as it was St. Georges day. Comon sense at last! But the fact that a couple of people felt the need to complain, is what I was so ashamed of.

Believe it or not: Someone even took the flag from one of my Collegues FLT (it was a large one, covering the bottom half of one side of the FLT), and it wasn't returned, until one of the Managers started investigating the incident. It "miraculously" reappeared, before anyone could find out who took it. How petty is that?!?!

[norbert]

Yep, believable.

I was told once 'Good for You' when I mentioned I had to pick my 4 year old child up from school, and could not work past my contracted hours.

Does this mean she is sacked now as she has been convicted of a criminal offence? Bet you pants if it was one of us RM would sack us.

you can go and watch her scrubbing graffiti off walls and doing litter picks with a load of chavs and druggies - yet another RM manager doing community service
Know of a few BNP members that wear union jack / St George cufflinks and ties to wind Asian staff up - it will be the hardest that these managers have or will have to work in years

And it's people like them, who make things so difficult for the rest of us, who are proud to be English. A couple of people moaned, because some of us displayed the St. George Flag on our FLTs and Scuds, on St. Georges Day. That BNP lot, have turned our Flags (Union Flag/St George Flag) into symbols for their Racism.

It comes to something, when we have to be careful about showing National Pride!

that's why there was a campaign in Voice about reclaiming St Georges Day , however with people moaning about your flags , RM will be keen to latch onto it to earn brownie points and present all this rubbish about how right on than thou ; RM are .

I've actually seen one case when a union jack cufflink and tie wearing manager walked out of a " fact finding " interview office and said " f**king Pa** " - However on Planet RM he was walking away and facing forward and not looking at the person he abused so therefore it can't be proved as harassment !

The guy grabbed his wrist and said " What did you call me ? " so the manager shouted out to an acting manager " J*** did you see this ? " . They suspended the guy for about 8 weeks but that rogue manager laid it on too thick , alleging that he'd been bounced off the walls by the Asian member of staff but there was no witnesses .

The Union got the Asian guy back by leaking it to the papers as that manager had a record as long as your arm but had been protected by the " boys club puppetmaster " .

Don't get me wrong , that Asian guy played the system , took the p*** , I wouldn't employ him , however to his credit he didn't play the race card and go to professional complainers and troublemakers and let the union deal with it .

That's the problem a load of very middle aged adolescents plotting as to how to do petty vendettas .