CLAIMS that a doorman denied a man entry to a town bar due to him being gay have been dismissed by the Employment and Discrimination Tribunal.
Michael Wynne alleged that he was turned away from The Mary Rose, on Mulcaster Street, when he was on a night out with his friends and partner, Alex Fergusson-Cooper, earlier this year.
Mr Wynne also said the doorman, Nuno Abreu, acted aggressively and repeatedly used the term “queen” in a derogatory way, according to a recently published tribunal judgment.
Mr Wynne, who is the director of music at St Luke’s Church, pursued a harassment claim rather than alleging direct discrimination because it focuses on “unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic” – such as sexual orientation – that “violates a person’s dignity or creates a hostile, degrading, or offensive environment”.
The tribunal, however, ruled that the claim of harassment was unsubstantiated and that Mr Wynne’s recollection of events was “poor” and “unreliable” following a hearing on 25 November.
While the claimant was “adamant” he was wearing a “pink shirt and dark check blazer”, the tribunal found that a photo taken on the night showed he was wearing a “white shirt and red gilet”.
The tribunal was critical of the couple’s failure to “preserve” video evidence they had initially claimed to possess, with Mr Fergusson-Cooper explaining that the footage was lost when he changed phones.
The judgment states: “We are concerned that key evidence recorded on Mr Fergusson-Cooper’s phone was not retained despite proceedings having commenced.
“We consider it likely that no steps were taken to preserve the footage because it did not support Mr Wynne’s case.”
The tribunal added that a claim in a Facebook post written by Mr Fergusson-Cooper about having video evidence of the alleged homophobic slurs “may have been incorrect” – which raised doubts about the accuracy of the post as a whole.
The tribunal concluded that the testimonies from Raven Security employees, including the defendant, his colleague, and the director, were more credible than those offered by the couple.
In his account, Mr Abreu said that Mr Wynne was turned away because he appeared to be intoxicated, was swaying and “sounded drunk” when he spoke.
After entry was refused, the doorman reported that Mr Wynne responded by saying: “This is ridiculous; do you know who I am?”
The other security guard who was present later during the interaction, Ryan Dransfield, supported Mr Abreu’s account, and said he didn’t hear his colleague use the word “queen”.
Mr Dransfield added that one of the comments he heard from Mr Wynne was “do you know who I am?”, which he claimed Mr Wynne repeated multiple times.
The judgment concluded: “We found both Mr Abreu and Mr Dransfield to be honest witnesses and we prefer their evidence to that of Mr Wynne and Mr Fergusson-Cooper on the key issue of the words used by Mr Abreu when Mr Wynne was denied entry.”
The judgment noted that CCTV footage of the incident at The Mary Rose was no longer available due to standard deletion practices after 30 days.
Review of footage
However, Jose Gomes, the director of Raven Security, testified that he had reviewed the footage before it was erased.
He said the footage showed Mr Wynne swaying with his hands in his pockets and showed no signs of aggression from Mr Abreu.
The judgment read: “We consider it highly unlikely that had Mr Wynne been subjected to the type of verbal abuse that he describes, he would have left his hands in his pockets.”
The tribunal found Mr Gomes’s evidence to be credible and noted his comments that there had been no previous incidents involving Mr Abreu during his seven years of employment and that he had completed discrimination training 16 months before the incident.
Failed to prove
The tribunal ultimately found that Mr Wynne failed to prove on the “balance of probabilities” that homophobic language was used.
The judgment concluded: “We consider that while Mr Wynne may have thought he heard Mr Abreu repeatedly use the word ‘queen’, his recollection and that of Mr Fergusson-Cooper are unreliable due to their level of intoxication.
“Having found on the balance of probability that Mr Abreu did not use the word ‘queen’, Mr Wynne cannot satisfy the panel that an act of harassment happened.
“The claim of unlawful discrimination is therefore dismissed.”
The panel was chaired by Advocate Dr Elena Moran, who was joined by Advocate Allana Binnie and Advocate Richard Renouf.
