A recruitment consultant who was disciplined after boasting to colleagues about her ‘gold star’ sex life has lost her employment tribunal.
Charlotte Tilley referred to her boyfriend as ‘Johnny Depp,’ showed off a sex tape to colleagues, edited photos of naked male torsos on her laptop at work and kissed another woman at the office Christmas party.
When bosses challenged her about her behaviour, Miss Tilley claimed she was trying to make colleagues uncomfortable so they would stop asking her about her sex life.
But after a series of complaints about her behaviour, managers at Gravitas Recruitment Group launched a disciplinary investigation which led to her resigning, the employment tribunal in Manchester was told.
Miss Tilley, who is in her late 20s, took the international recruitment firm to a tribunal over claims of sex discrimination and victimisation for the way she had been treated.
However, her case was dismissed, with the panel ruling she had ‘a high tolerance of matters of a sexual nature’.
The hearing was told Miss Tilley joined Gravitas – which specialises in technology, insurance and banking – as a recruitment consultant in housing in July 2022.
In December that year, the tribunal was told she ‘kissed another women in full view of others’.
Following this, Miss Tilley claimed two fellow members of staff had asked her at work whether she was bisexual, which she confirmed to them but said it made her uncomfortable.
However, one of the colleagues, Cleopatra Mabena, said it was Miss Tilley who instigated the conversation.
‘[She] interrupted a private conversation…to tell them she had been matching with girls on a dating app,’ the tribunal was told.
‘Ms Mabena said she responded by asking [her] how she was finding them, to which [Ms Mabena] replied by recounting her experiences, including showing them the chat history of conversations with other women.
‘Ms Mabena said neither she nor [the other colleague] asked to see the phone and much of the information [Miss Tilley] shared was unprompted. She added that at no point did [Miss Tilley] say she felt uncomfortable.’
The tribunal heard that in February 2023 the recruitment consultant ‘discussed her sexual partners with colleagues and referred to them as Johnny Depp’.
The hearing was told she had started a relationship with company trainer Kieron Mattinson at the firm’s AGM around December 27 2022 but the couple had managed to keep it a secret until the end of January.
‘There was a conversation that took place in the office on the morning of 2 February when [her] relationship with Mr Mattinson was discussed,’ the tribunal heard.
‘[Miss Tilley’s] case is that she was asked a barrage of questions by colleagues, such as ‘What is he like in bed? Was he Johnny Depp?’ to which she replied she did not want to discuss it.
‘She says the questioning persisted for about five minutes, after which she made the comment ‘What do you think the gold stars are for?’, which was a reference to gold star stickers on her computer.
‘She claimed this comment was made in an attempt to make them feel uncomfortable and stop the unwanted questions. She said the gold star stickers had been there since October 2022 and were there to decorate her computer.
‘Ms Mabena [said] that [Miss Tilley] shared the information of her own accord and never seemed uncomfortable doing so.’
She claimed she said it because she was being harassed about her relationship and sex life with Mr Mattinson and that she felt uncomfortable that their relationship was office gossip.
The panel was told she had hoped to ‘shut them up’ by ‘shocking’ them but managers told her that language of that nature was ‘neither appropriate nor professional’ and she should ‘think things in her head and try not to say things out loud’ that would ‘add fuel to the fire’.
Just days later, bosses received complaints about Miss Tilley ‘suggestively’ hugging a male staff member and of another incident that was alleged to have taken place before Christmas 2022.
‘A group of staff were in the pub and [Miss Tilley] was talking about herself and others inappropriately,’ a female colleague claimed.
‘She said [she] then proceeded to show them a video on her phone of [her] having sex with an ex-boyfriend.’
Miss Tilley was also accused of editing a collage on her MacBook of pictures of naked male torsos, in full view of other colleagues.
Bosses launched an investigation into the complaints of her ‘making unacceptable sexual comments, viewing inappropriate imagery during working hours and showing colleagues an inappropriate video’.
However, the tribunal was told Miss Tilley went off sick with stress and resigned in March 2023.
She sued Gravitas for sex harassment, victimisation, sex discrimination, constructive dismissal and unauthorised deduction from wages.
She claimed she had been subjected to ‘unwanted and intrusive questions regarding her private life and relationship with a colleague, including intrusive questioning about her sex life and sexual orientation’.
However, the tribunal rejected her claims.
Employment Judge Liz Ord said: ‘[Miss Tilley] readily participated in conversations of a sexual nature, including discussing her sexual relationships with her colleagues.
‘She used explicit language and had images of naked male torsos on her computer screen saver. She had a high tolerance of matters of a sexual nature.’