A case of wind

[Gob]

A senior barrister who sued the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after a colleague asked him to stop breaking wind in the room they worked in together has lost his case.

Tarique Mohammed sued for harassment and told an employment tribunal that his repetitive flatulence was caused by medication he was on for a heart condition.

He said the comment from his colleague Paul McGorry was “embarrassing” and violated his dignity – but the panel found it was a reasonable request to have asked him to stop.

The prosecutor, who suffered a heart attack in 2014, also alleged he was discriminated against because of his disabilities and made a number of further allegations against his co-workers and bosses.

He claimed they threw away his water bottles, asked him to work one day a week 60 miles away and failed to pay for his barrister’s practising certificate while he was on sick leave.

The claims of disability-related discrimination were also thrown out by the panel, chaired by the employment judge Emma Hawksworth, in Reading, Berkshire.

The CPS did accept that it treated Mohammed unfairly by not allowing him to work from home two days a week and leave work at 4pm to help him manage his condition, and by removing him from court duties, meaning he will receive compensation.

His heart condition meant he had to take daily medication, the side-effects of which meant he had to remain at home for several hours after taking it. In 2016, he began sharing an office with McGorry, where the issue of his persistent flatulence was raised.

“Mr McGorry was aware the claimant had had a heart attack but he was not aware of what medication the claimant was taking or that flatulence was a side-effect of the medication,” the tribunal was told.

“There were repeated incidents of flatulence in the quiet room. On one occasion Mr McGorry asked [Mr Mohammed]: ‘Do you have to do that Tarique?’”

Mohammed said it was due to his medication and when asked if he could step outside to do it, he said he could not.

In February 2016 he was moved to another team that meant he did not have to attend court and was asked to work one day a week in Brighton, East Sussex, more than one hour’s drive from Guildford.

He launched a grievance, which concluded that the CPS should have made allowances for him, and went on sick leave. His employment was terminated in April 2020.

The tribunal threw out Mohammed’s claims of disability-related harassment and victimisation. “Many of the incidents about which [he] complains were unrelated to his disability … or were caused or aggravated by [him] overreacting,” the panel said.

Of the flatulence, the tribunal commented: “Mr McGorry’s questions to [Mr Mohammed] were not asked with the purpose of violating [his] dignity or creating such an environment. It was not an unreasonable question to ask, when there had been repeated incidents of flatulence in a small office.”

[Long Run]

Rumpole would have had a gas riot with this one.