Tourist gift shop worker, 33, wins £5,000 payout after he was forced to quit his job in bizarre sexism row

Daily Mail​

10 hours ago

A tourist gift shop worker who allegedly refused to give swords to female customers wanting to pose for souvenir photos has won almost £5,000.
Santiago Cubillo became embroiled in the bizarre sexism row while working at the Tartan Weaving Mill, a shop near Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Royal Mile.
The popular tourist spot boasts an Armoury and studio where visitors can dress up in costumes and have their pictures taken.
However, the 33-year-old sales assistant was accused of being sexist by colleagues after he failed to hand out sword props to female tourists posing for the photos, an employment tribunal heard.
Mr Cubillo retaliated by claiming he was the victim of a 'smear' campaign, saying one of his accusers viewed him as an 'obstacle' in her quest to become head of the store's photo studio and Harry Potter section.
An investigation by the shop found that the sexism claims against Mr Cubillo - who had been moved to another store while his complaints were looked into - were untrue and that he had been harassed by his colleagues.
However he quit his job after he was not allowed to come back to his original place of work.
After successfully suing GL Attractions, owners of the Tartan Weaving Mill, for constructive dismissal he has been awarded £4,748 in compensation.
Held in Edinburgh, the tribunal was told he worked at the store - which offers tourist experiences and sells a variety of traditional Scottish goods - from August 2019.
The shop boasts it has 'the largest collection of woollens, gifts and other visitor merchandise on the Royal Mile, as well as Edinburgh's only tartan weaving mill'.
In the Armoury and Harry Potter sections of the store customers can put on costumes and pose for photographs, the hearing was told.
Mr Cubillo, who represented himself at the tribunal, claimed that a 'good old-fashioned smear campaign' was started against him by co-workers in mid to late 2021.
They are a mother and her two daughters, who were referred to only by their initials throughout the tribunal - F, S and M.
Mr Cubillo claimed he had been friends with the daughters for two years and had also socialised with F.
He said the problems began when he was moved to the Armoury section.
Mr Cubillo said that F 'and, to some degree' S and M had accused him of being sexist and 'went around the shop spreading these rumours'.
In a letter to HR in November, he said: 'One person that was sure that I was not giving swords to women in the photo experience because of sexism, when, if you check my picture folder, you can see that all of the customers are holding swords.'
Of F's motivation for spreading rumours about him, he said: 'F is obsessed with a promotion, more specifically, she wants to be supervisor, or manager, of the Harry Potter department and the photo studio.
'Two departments I have been working for longer than her and of which I am known to be good at.
'I became an obstacle for her, an obstacle to be removed at all cost'.
In December, the two had a 'shouting' argument in the shop in which Mr Cubillo said F was 'a miserable person and a liar, and that she had told lies about him in order to secure promotion'.
A senior manager who stopped them fighting said Mr Cubillo was being 'a little bit intimidating' and acting 'a bit over the top and paranoid about the whole situation'.
Mr Cubillo felt that F and her daughters 'act as a group in conflicts and bully others', the tribunal heard.
He and F were moved to different stores while the incidents between them were investigated.
His employers did find in January 2022 that 'he had been subject to harassment by F, and to a lesser extent her daughters S and M'.
Mr Cubillo then wrote to them about the managers he complained to: 'If the incompetency of a doctor kills one of the patients who is the one to blame?
'The doctor? The director of the hospital that hired him? Both?
'In any case, the hospital should make sure that is a case that it is not going to repeat again.'
In another email, he called for F, S and M to be fired.
'They should be offered a Settlement Agreement...' he said.
'This money would ease the human disgrace of an entire household losing their income and would give them time to find another job.'
In another email, he called for the general manager to be fired, and for another manager, a HR administrator and a HR advisor to be 'given the opportunity to resign'.
The tribunal found that at this point his demands were 'becoming quite unreasonable, in essence seeking the dismissal of all those with whom he was displeased'.
He went off sick from mid-January 2022, confirming to his employer that he had been diagnosed with depression the next month.
Mr Cubillo resigned in April 2022, stating that he considered himself constructively dismissed.
Upholding this complaint, Employment Judge Murdo MacLeod said: '[GL Attractions] made no effort to engage with [Mr Cubillo] about returning to his home store, and as a result, his frustration with that point, and his deep sense of injustice about this and other matters, led, in our judgment, to his resignation.'
GL Attractions claimed that rota issues were responsible for the fact that he was not returned to the original store, but the tribunal found that the evidence suggested this was not the case.
The judge continued: 'It is therefore our conclusion that [GL Attractions] did act in breach of [Mr Cubillo]'s contract of employment by failing to take prompt action to arrange for [Mr Cubillo] to return to work in the Tartan Weaving Mill once his grievance had been substantially upheld.'
Mr Cubillo's other claims of age discrimination, harassment and victimisation failed.