David Noakes – the chief executive of a company behind a ‘wonder drug’ which, it claims, treats cancer, autism and numerous other conditions – subjected his personal assistant, Lucia Pagliarone, to ‘insulting, gender-specific comments’, an employment tribunal has found.
After starting work at the firm, Immuno Biotech, she repeatedly heard Mr Noakes make inappropriate comments about staff, especially female workers. She later found her CV, on which Mr Noakes had written: ‘Red lipstick, heels – good. Tattoos – do not approve. Wearing a dress – excellent.’
The panel heard that shortly after conducting an interview with another candidate, Mr Noakes, who is currently standing for Deputy in a by-election in Guernsey, said: ‘Well, we can’t hire her, as she is ugly and overweight and I only employ beautiful women.’
Miss Pagliarone, who left the company last year following a dispute with Mr Noakes, was awarded £10,500 after winning her sex discrimination case.
Ruling in her favour, the panel said: ‘The tribunal has been persuaded that insulting, gender-specific comments were uttered by Mr Noakes on multiple occasions and it was clear that Miss Pagliarone suffered a detriment.’
However, the panel dismissed Miss Pagliarone’s claim of unfair dismissal.
Earlier this year Mr Noakes hit the national headlines after the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency warned that GcMaf, which is made from human blood, could pose a significant risk to health.
AN out-of-control BMW left a trail of destruction behind it in a Guernsey shopping district, crashing into six cars and a school minibus before slamming into a wall.
Witnesses say that the car hit vehicles at speed in the Bridge area of the island before going round a roundabout and colliding with more cars. It then reversed into a wall and came to a halt.
Describing the incident, Kia Lowe, owner of Kia’s Boutique, said: ‘I thought there was a 20-car pile-up when I heard it and ran out.’
She said the convertible hit two cars before continuing towards a roundabout, where it flattened a sign post. It then went round the roundabout and tried to park before hitting further vehicles.
No one was injured but the driver was taken to hospital as a precaution.
A spokesman for Guernsey’s Education Department confirmed that the bus suffered minor damage. There were no pupils in the vehicle at the time of the accident and the driver was also unharmed. Several other cars were also damaged in the incident, which happened
at about 12.30 pm on Monday.
An investigation into the cause of the accident is continuing.
A 71-YEAR-OLD former commercial airline pilot has been jailed for a year after smuggling cannabis into Guernsey inside a statue of the Buddha.
Robert Woolland was found in possession of 53.2g of the drug shortly after arriving in the island as a passenger from Gatwick in July.
The pensioner, who was jailed for life in 1965 for setting fire to a property but turned his life around and went on to fly for Aurigny, quickly admitted he was in possession of the class B drug.
When plastic material that was protruding from the bottom of the statue was shown to the defendant he said: ‘It’s very clever actually – sorry to put you through all this. It’s a bit of cannabis – it’s the bud, you know.’
Woolland said that he had probably bought the statue in a charity shop in Horsham, where he lived, and had hidden the drug to conceal it from ‘people who might be interested in it’.
Guernsey’s Royal Court heard that he had planned to put it in a cupboard where he hoped that no one would have found it.
Woolland said that he smoked cannabis often to relieve back pain and added that he had brought enough to Guernsey to last him until the end of the year.
He denied any intention to supply the drug in the island and pleaded guilty to possessing a class B substance.
