Apple employee who took photos of female colleague unfairly dismissed for sexual harassment

A tribunal has recently decided the case of an Apple employee who took photos of a female colleague, sent them via WhatsApp to a male colleague and, as a result, was dismissed by the company. The tribunal found the actions of the employee did not amount to sexual harassment.

Mr Sieberer worked for Apple Retail UK. On two occasions he took photos of a female colleague at their workplace without her knowledge or consent. He then sent the images to a group chat shared with another male colleague who had a “crush” on the female employee and two other colleagues. One of the two other colleagues reported the incident to her manager.

Apple investigated the incident and dismissed Mr Sieberer for sexual harassment for taking and sharing the photos.

However at tribunal the judge ruled that the decision to dismiss was not a reasonable response by the company. The tribunal found that the disciplining manager had incorrectly thought Mr Sieberer was guilty of sexual harassment primarily because the photos he took and shared were of a female colleague.

The tribunal found that Apple’s anti-harassment policy was vague and did not give a definition of harassment. It also found that the female employee was unlikely to have known her photo had been taken and so Mr Siberer’s behaviour could not have impacted her. There was no evidence that anyone took offence to the photographs so the dismissal was unfair.

Check your anti-harassment policy and ensure it has a definition of harassment and sexual harassment.

Ensure you can distinguish between harassment, bullying, banter and discrimination in your workplace.

Train managers on how to respond to complaints of harassment and understand how to define harassment and sexual harassment.

Undertake awareness training for all employees on what is and is not harassment.

Be aware of the forthcoming legal change in October 2024 which puts a new duty on all employers to proactively prevent sexual harassment from occurring in their organisation.

Please contact your SSG consultant if you require a copy of the updated version of the SSG Bullying and Harassment Policy which contains a definition of sexual harassment.