£38,000 tribunal win for Sky staff member accused of being racist

A Sky worker has been awarded almost £40,000 by a Dundee employment tribunal after bosses at a call centre wrongly sacked him in a racism row.

Steven Ritchie, of Dunfermline, was sacked by Sky Subscriber Services in October 2013 after he told the daughter of a female Vietnamese customer he would have expected the account holder to have learned to speak enough English to supply a security password over the phone.

The customer then emailed Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch directly to complain, saying Mr Ritchie, who worked for the company at its call centre in Dunfermline, had been racist.

Sky bosses investigated and dismissed him after an appeals process.

Mr Ritchie called the entire process “a sham” and an employment tribunal held in Dundee upheld his application for unfair dismissal and awarded him a reduced payment of £37,943.49.

Sky have also been ordered to pay costs of £950 to Mr Ritchie.

The tribunal ruled while overall the disciplinary process followed was “reasonable,” Sky had not fully explored other avenues open to them and ruled that no reasonable employer would have dismissed Mr Ritchie.

Sky was asked to comment but declined to do so.