Married HBOS bank manager propositioned by colleagues

Haley Tansey, a married former HBOS manager, was forced out of her job by a “harassing and laddish culture” including unwanted advances from colleagues, an employment tribunal heard.

Mrs Tansey, 39, claims one fellow manager tricked his way into her hotel room and stripped naked, others took her to a lap dancing bar and she was repeatedly subjected to suggestive comments.

She alleged that employees watched pornography on their laptops during working hours, swapping DVDs and continually bragging about their sex lives.

Mrs Tansey worked for the troubled banking group for 17 years before resigning her £39,000 a year job in the loans department due to stress, the hearing in Leeds was told.

She is claiming £604,000 for loss of earnings and hurt feelings due to sexual harassment, discrimination and constructive dismissal.

Mrs Tansey, from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, who is being supported at the hearing by her husband John, had to travel widely with her work.

Her team had been staying at the Thistle Hotel, Cheltenham, in 1998, when she had a last drink in the bar with one of her male colleagues, a married man with three children.

She said she spurned his advances and went to her hotel room when he had bombarded her with phone calls and knocked on her bedroom door before she finally went to sleep.

Mrs Tansey said she was awoken and turned to see the man standing over her and he explained that the night porter had let him in after he lied about her being his girlfriend.

He asked to lie on her bed, which she refused, and then when she ordered him to leave, he asked to use the bathroom – and then emerged from there naked. She threatened to hit him with a high heel shoe before he dressed and left.

Mrs Tansey attempted to avoid him after that but said during a conference in Birmingham, at a themed
casino evening, she was bending over the roulette table when he slapped her backside.

She also claims that during a conference in Edinburgh she accompanied male colleagues to a bar before
realising it was a lap dancing club they had paid her into.

Mr Tansey said: “Some of the people I was with were almost embarrassing in their eagerness to start
paying for dancers. The whole atmosphere revolted me, and I said so. I was told not to be so puritanical.”

When she was promoted a manager praised her ability to fulfil the role and added that she also had “a
great pair of —-.”

Another man said he liked it when she leant over her desk because he always got “a good eyeful”.

Mrs Tansey said she was also asked about her ‘all over’ tan after a holiday and asked about where she
shaved her body.

She finally left work through stress and later resigned because she felt returning was untenable.

Damian McCarthy, for HBOS, told her there was no laddish culture at HBOS as she had claimed. He said:  “If there was a laddish culture, you would not have been continually promoted.”

Mr McCarthy suggested the manager Mrs Tansey had accused over the hotel incident was shy, not very  sociable and easily embarrassed.

He claimed when the man later knocked on her door she answered it topless, was happy to expose herself  and told him “It is only what you see on the beach every day” before walking into the room with the door  open behind her.

Mr McCarthy said the man followed, sat down in her bedroom and the talk became sexual before he left. He later asked the night porter to let him back in and they talked about sex for another 10 minutes.

The hearing continues.