Post by Joanna on Dec 17, 2013 23:41:03 GMT -5
Witch sacked for taking Halloween off work to attend Wiccan ceremony wins £15,000 after claiming religious discrimination
A Pagan witch has won a religious discrimination case after claiming she was sacked for attending a Halloween ceremony. Karen Holland (above), 45, was awarded more than £15,000 ($24,390.00) by the courts in what is believed to be the first payout of its kind in Britain.
Her Sikh bosses insisted they fired her after they caught her stealing, but she accused them of turning on her when they found out she was a Wicca-practicing pagan and took them to an employment tribunal, which ruled in her favor.
Yesterday, Holland, who is now on Jobseeker’s Allowance, said she was taken outside and fired when she returned to the newsagents where she worked after celebrating All Hallows’ Eve. The Pagan festival, also called the Feast of the Dead, is marked by making food for the deceased, who are said to reawaken on that night and return to their old homes for refreshments. Traditionally, cakes and meats are served alongside apples, pears, pomegranates, ale and herbal tea. Incense is also burned with woods and herbs.
Holland claimed her bosses looked at her as if she were a “leper” when they learned she was Wiccan. She said she was subsequently ridiculed for her beliefs by brothers Tarloch and Gurnam Singh, 36 and 25, who own the Londis shop in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, where she was employed. They allegedly asked her if modern day witches could fly on broomsticks – something they deny they ever said.
Holland was later accused of stealing a magazine and lottery ticket and fired. The Singhs gave her £204.76 as two weeks wages, but no redundancy payment. She also was barred from returning to the store.
She took her bosses to court, claiming unfair dismissal, sex discrimination and religious discrimination and was awarded £15,337.12 in total, including £6,145.44 for unfair dismissal and £9,000 plus £95.84 interest for the other two charges. The tribunal, in front of Judge George at Watford, found the way she was dismissed to be “indefensible” and said it breached “the basics of natural justice.” The ruling stated: “She described him [her boss] as seeming revolted by the idea that she was a Wiccan and was made to feel that there was something wrong with her. ‘There was a look of disgust, it was scary,’ were the words she used. When she explained that the two men might have come across a reference to a religion where the female members were called witches and that was the Wiccan religion, it led to jokes poking fun at a stereotypical view of witches which she found offensive. Whatever was said it crossed the line from polite if uninformed and possible crass enquiry to insulting mockery.”
The Singh brothers are appealing the court’s decision, insisting they caught Holland stealing and showed her CCTV footage to prove what they had seen before sacking her. Later, the footage was deleted because they did not think they would have to produce it again.
Tarloch Singh, who also has a shop in Windsor, said the payout would ruin his business. “I did not know about her religion. I never ask my staff if they are Christian, Muslim or anything else,” he claimed. “She made this up. She has no witnesses. I don’t know how I will pay.”
Holland had worked in the shop for two years before it was taken over by the Singh brothers last October. She was fired in November. She said: “I never stole at all. I worked in that shop for two and a half years and I had a great reputation.”
Holland, who has been officially initiated as a witch and wears jewellery representing Mother Earth, explainied she has “always been drawn to the spiritual side” and has “always had a call towards it. It’s not like looking into being a Muslim or being a Catholic. It’s not like going to church on a Sunday. It’s a draw. It’s a pull. It’s a way of life. A total way of life.”
Source: Paul Bentley, The Daily Mail, December 14, 2013.