Discrimination case shows that sighs matter
An employment tribunal in Southampton has ruled that a boss's 'sighing and exaggerated exhales' can be considered discriminatory. Given the contemporary tendency to find offence where none exists, an instinctive reaction to this judgment might be to see further evidence of society's ever-thinning skin in the face of any imagined criticism. Yet on reflection a reasonable person would surely agree with the judge's comment that non-verbal expressions of irritation can have a 'damning effect on self-esteem and anxiety'.
Some discrimination cases are frivolous but the one successfully brought by Robert Watson against Roke Manor Research had merit. A theatrical sigh, a snort of laughter, a sneer, an eye roll, right the way up to a middle finger or a punch in the face — all
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
British businessman accused of spying for China reported to a Red Army agent with close ties to Chinese president Xi
A British businessman accused of spying for China reported to a high-ranking intelligence officer closely linked to President Xi Jinping, The Mail on Sunday has learned. John Miller, who the MoS last week revealed was the subject of an FBI sting operation, was arrested with his 'handler', Cui Guanghai, just hours before they were due to board a flight to Beijing. Both men are accused of trying to buy weapons and sensitive military technology in the United States for the People's Liberation Army. This newspaper can now reveal that Cui, 43, is an Edinburgh University graduate suspected of working for China's military intelligence and described as 'important' to President Xi. Court documents claim Miller, a 63-year-old recruitment specialist from Tunbridge Wells, was 'working for and being directed by' Cui. The two men were once pictured together in London 's Chinatown. Other images on social media show Cui and his wife at locations in Edinburgh, Dublin and London, including the Houses of Parliament. Britain's security services are understood to be liaising with the FBI, examining both Cui's activities in the UK and Miller's background. Last night Miller's sister Avril said: 'I am totally devastated and shocked, but it has nothing to do with me. I last saw him at a wedding 14 years ago.' The MoS revealed last week that Miller was caught on intercepted phone calls referring to Xi as 'the boss', suggesting he was acting under the control of the Chinese government. Now it can be disclosed that Miller once accompanied Cui on a business trip to Colonel Gaddafi-era Libya, a country with close economic ties to China. A family friend said: 'He [Miller] told me he was starting a business building prefab houses for Africa which he was having made in China.' The detention of Cui and Miller in Belgrade, Serbia – where they remain under house arrest – is believed to have led to a diplomatic row. China's ambassador to Serbia, Li Ming, is said to have clashed with the country's interior minister, Ivica Dacic. A source said Mr Li demanded to know why Cui – whom he called 'our agent' and 'important' to President Xi – was arrested at the behest of the FBI. China is the biggest foreign investor in Serbia. Miller and Cui were seized at the city's Hyatt Regency Hotel on April 24 having flown in from Hungary where they met business associates – and apparently fell into an FBI trap. Sources say agents waited for Cui to leave China for Europe before issuing the arrest order. Both men now face extradition to the US. It is not clear how Cui and Miller first met. The Englishman once ran a company bringing Chinese students to the UK, while his son from his first marriage has been based in China for years and is a close friend of Cui. Court documents claim Miller organised the surveillance and harassment of a Chinese-American artist critical of Beijing, telling a henchman to make him an 'offer he can't refuse... like The Godfather'. Miller has been charged in the US with smuggling, stalking and violations of the Arms Export Control Act. If convicted, both he and Cui face up to 40 years in prison. A 14-page indictment filed in Wisconsin alleges that Miller was caught in a sting after arms dealers he was negotiating with turned out to be undercover FBI agents. Family and friends of Miller, who described him as outgoing and charismatic, expressed astonishment at the news. The son of a builder from the Gorbals in Glasgow, Miller grew up one of six children on a council estate in Coventry, sharing a bedroom with his three brothers. A family friend said he had 'a real drive about him and was always looking for the next big thing'. They added: 'He had a hard time growing up and was driven by success. He wanted a nice life; he wasn't going to stay on a council estate. Eight of them in a three-bed house wasn't easy. And then their mum died when she was only 43. That was tough for all of them. Of them all, Johnny was a bit different, a one-off. 'He always had big ambitions.' Miller went into the Armed Forces, becoming a boxer representing the Royal Navy. It was during this time he met his first wife, 'a Puerto Rican beauty', with whom he had two children. They lived in the US, where Miller retains residency status, but later divorced. His daughter from his second marriage attended one of England's top public schools. Friends describe a chequered business history. Miller has been a director or a majority shareholder of at least nine firms, including a courier company. 'When I last saw him at a wedding over ten years ago, he was flying,' said a friend. 'His company had bases in London and New York, and he drove a nice Saab.' But at some point his fortunes waned and he was reduced to asking family and friends for loans. 'I think he saw an opportunity in China,' said another friend. 'He was hyperactive when it came to work.' The US court documents allege that Miller attempted to procure equipment including surface-to-air missiles, predator drones and a handheld device for the secure communication of 'classified and sensitive national security information'. A second 67-page indictment, filed in California, accuses Miller and Cui, also known as 'Jack', of targeting artist Hui Bo, who had created an 'embarrassing' sculpture of Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan naked from the waist up. Transcripts between Miller and an associate allege they discussed shooting Hui or hitting him with a baseball bat.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Four hundred rookie Marines made to do gruelling 'mud run' after around a dozen fellow recruits are caught stealing from the camp's self-service canteen
It is the kind of old-fashioned discipline that was thought to have disappeared from even our elite Armed Forces. But in a move hailed as a blow against modern ' woke ' culture, the entire contingent of trainee Royal Marines has just been forced to crawl through mud to pay for the 'sins' of a handful of their colleagues. Hundreds of rookie commandos were ordered to do the Marines' 'mud run' after only a dozen or so fellow recruits were caught pilfering the camp's canteen. The run involves crawling through foul-smelling silt outside their training base in Devon in an exercise so gruelling that some ex-commandos thought it had been abolished. But defence sources confirmed last night that around 400 fit and able recruits had undergone the mud run. A source told The Mail on Sunday: 'They were putting stuff through the self-service canteen checkout without scanning some items and the mass mud run was ordered as a result.' But far from criticising the 'mass punishment', current and former Marines heaped praise on commanders at the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone. One former commando said: 'This has gone down very well after decades of suffocating 'woke' culture in the Forces.' A source at the base said: 'This was a big call by the CO and, quite frankly, all the instructors welcomed it. Those people who were caught stealing didn't just let themselves down – they let their mates down. 'The vast majority of those who faced the mud were innocent but this sends a message to all that theft will not be tolerated.' Former Defence Minister and ex-regular Army captain Tobias Ellwood said: 'At first glance, this collective punishment may seem excessive. However, this is the military – not civilian life. 'Fighting units, especially elite forces like the Marines, function best when there is absolute trust and discipline within the ranks and loyalty to the team. They train as one and fight as one, and such punishment reinforces their cohesion and unity.' Commanders were understood to have been furious at the thefts, regarded as one of the worst offences in the Marines because it undermines the integrity of their 'corps ethos'. However, last night, defence sources said that officers in charge at Lympstone regarded the incident as closed, with no further action to be taken against the offending trainees.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Pontardawe: Fraud mum Katherine Hill's daughters on inheritance theft trauma
Two sisters whose mother went from being their best friend to stealing their £50,000 inheritance say they have been left feeling anxious and unable to trust Hill, 53, from Alltwen in Pontardawe, Neath Port Talbot, and her 93-year-old father Gerald Hill from Fairwood in Swansea were found guilty of fraud by abuse of power after a trial last were sentenced to 30 months in prison and a 12-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, respectively. On Monday, Hill was ordered to repay the money, which was left to her daughters Gemma and Jessica Thomas by their grandmother Margaret Hill."I'll never have a relationship with my mother now," said Jessica. Swansea Crown Court previously heard, due to inflation, the sum stolen by the "greedy and spiteful" Hills was now worth about £65, Hill put the money in an instant access Barclays Everyday Saver account, despite being advised not to, and both she and her dad had cards to access it - draining the contents within a March 2016 and March 2017, the account where the money was held was emptied in 10 withdrawals, with £35,000 withdrawn in three transactions alone, the court heard. Gemma and Jessica grew up in Neath Port Talbot with their parents, and said Hill was a "good mother"."She was like my best friend", said Gemma, now 26, adding "no-one saw this coming".She said Hill did not have a good relationship with her own mother Margaret Hill - who split from her father when Hill was a teenager - though the girls did not know why. Margaret Hill died in 2014, while [Katherine] Hill was divorcing the girls' father, Chris the time Jessica was just 12 and not told about the inheritance, but Gemma, who was 15 "understood a little bit more".The £50,000 was placed in a trust fund with their mother as a trustee - to be accessed when they were the divorce, the girls stayed living with their mother for about six months, but say she would often leave them alone for long periods of time while she visited her new boyfriend."It would start where she was going on dates and stuff. And I think I was at that perfect age of 'my mother's going out for the night, I can have friends over', and I was kind of loving it for a while," said Gemma."But it got to the point where it was happening every weekend and people expected that I wasn't going to have a parent at home, and I would be like, 'please will you stay home this one time?'."Mr Thomas decided his daughters would be better living with him, so the girls moved out of their family home and with him, while Hill moved in with her current partner, Phillip Lloyd. The sisters said their mum would sometimes take them out on a weekend, to a pub or McDonalds, but the conversation would often centre around their father and her upset that they left."I think she just could never get over the fact that we were choosing to live with him over her," said said it was "clear from then that we weren't really a very important thing to her"."I remember when she came to see me on my 13th birthday, and took me out for the day, saying she had to leave early because she was going out with [her boyfriend] and his family."It wasn't like she'd spend a lot of money on us... not 50 grand's worth, anyway." They said, looking back, there were signs of extravagance from Hill and her partner, such as building a back garden pub and hot tub, and going on nothing set off alarm bells, as Hill had also received her own money from her late the girls said, they know it was really them paying for their mum's was when Gemma phoned her mum to ask about accessing the money early, as she planned to buy their childhood home from their dad, that the claims the inheritance never existed said her mum told her "the money's not yours" and blocked her number, before later claiming in court it had been posted through the girls' letterboxes. Jessica, who is now a nurse, recalled the shock of discovering the money existed, and then immediately that it was gone."How can you grieve something you never had? But [also] she's robbed me of an opportunity not a lot of people get."She and her boyfriend currently live with his parents, and she said saving up to move out without her inheritance would take a very long said she was angry, adding she found it frustrating the more time went on and the more Hill said the initial confusion and hurt was hard, given their happy memories of their mum, and the woman she saw in court did not seem like the same person."I'd sit there and be like, 'What if we're all wrong? What if she hasn't done it?'"But I have to accept that she has." Gemma said giving evidence in court was stressful, but the relief came more from feeling validated, than from money or the sentences."When it actually was the case that she was being sent down... it was like we were being told that we're not crazy," she girls said they saw people on social media claiming they were in prison with their mum and she "was still saying that she was innocent". "And people would believe in her... that's the most shocking thing to me," said Jessica. "Even though the relationship had started to break down before this, it could have possibly been fixed, whereas we're at that point now that we'll never go back to how we used to be."She added their mum had "showed no remorse for anything she did". "She would look at me while we were standing up giving evidence, and she was shaking her head as if I was the one telling lies," she said."It's like she'll never take responsibility for what she's done." Jessica said she had been going to counselling for many years, to address "massive issues with trust", while Gemma said she became "very needy in friendships"."[I thought] 'if my mother doesn't love me, who the hell is going to love me?'"Now a mother herself to a two-month-old boy, she said she saw the betrayal on a new level."I came home [after court] on Monday and I was feeding my son. I was looking at him, and I was like, I could not go 10 days, not even 10 hours really, without knowing how he was or what was going on in his life. Never mind the past 10 years."It doesn't make any sense, she's missing out on all of that."Jessica was still living and working in the same area as her mum brought her anxiety and she lived with a tic, which a doctor told her had been triggered by trauma."The whole thing has just had a massive effect on me, mentally and physically." She added she did not know how they would have coped without each other, or their father, who supported them emotionally and financially through the long legal with the result they wanted, they hope they will eventually see the money and "let go of this part of our lives".They say they want to forget their mother, and the end of court proceedings has brought a kind of closure, allowing them to "finally breathe".
