Former Sizzlers chef awarded £15,000 over racial abuse

The owner of the Sizzlers Restaurant in Magherafelt has been ordered to pay £15,000 to a former employee after an employment tribunal found he had been racially abused.

Damian Anysz, originally from Poland, was awarded the sum after the tribunal found that former colleague June Fullerton had verbally abused him during the period of his employment at the restaurant between November 2016 and July 2018.

The restaurant, which has since ceased trading, entered no defense at a one-day hearing in Belfast.

The tribunal heard that in May 201, Anysz asked Fullerton if she needed any help in the kitchen and that she replied using explicit language that he should “go back to your own…. country”.

The tribunal also heard that Anysz alleged that in separate incidents Fullerton deliberately collided with him while carrying trays in the kitchen and also slammed his arm in the door of the restaurant’s fridge.

The tribunal panel found that the restaurant’s owner at the time, Kate Clarke, had allowed Fullerton to repeat and escalate her harassment.

Anysz was awarded £14,000 for “injury to feelings” and £1,200 for the restaurant’s failure to provide him with a “statement of his terms and conditions”.