Property manager wins sexual harassment case after her bullying boss bombarded her with texts and suggested they go to his house in Turkey to do ‘all the fun stuff’

A property manager has won a sexual harassment case after her bullying boss bombarded her with text messages and suggested she go to his home in Turkey to do “all the fun stuff”.

Frances MacDonald was left in tears and feeling suicidal after Dilawar Khan sent her messages throughout the day “abusing” her, an employment tribunal heard.

The 47-year-old married Khan made “inappropriate” offers for dinner and talked about satisfying his “sexual needs”, it was heard.

Mr Khan boasted of being “surrounded by women”, having a “very high IQ” and said: “I need sex when I’m stressed”.

According to a court, his ‘threatening, pushy behaviour and constant nagging’ became too much for Mrs MacDonald. She continued to cry and had suicidal thoughts.

She was about to resign when he fired her.

However, she is now eligible for damages after a judge ruled she was harassed by Mr Khan, who showed “disrespect” and “objectified” women.

The court heard that in February 2021 she applied for a position as PA and Property Manager at Alpha Property Management and Services, based in Thetford, Norfolk.

However, she was told that he already had two ‘strong’ daughters, but that he suggested training a project manager, which required her ‘passion and dedication’.

In April 2021, he texted Ms MacDonald saying he was “surrounded by women and sometimes it was hard” because he was in “other worlds”.

He continued: ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love beautiful women, but their thinking and logic is very different from that of men.

‘I have a very high IQ, so I’m driving about 200 miles an hour and my assistants have a hard time keeping up with me.*Haha*So I have to drive slower.’

Mr Khan arranged an interview and later sent her a positive text message saying she would “handle his speed well”.

He then offered to sponsor Ms MacDonald, who previously worked in the music industry, to write a “sexy” song and do the team building exercises his teams had participated in.

“We should go to Turkey together, I have an apartment in the south, in the Blue Lagoons, and we can do all the fun stuff there,” he wrote, accompanied by a sticking-out-tongue emoji.

Ms MacDonald testified that the messages were sexual in nature and that she felt “very uncomfortable”, but she was unsure how to respond because she wanted the job.

She was offered the job in late April and later said in an interview: “I need sex when I’m stressed” and that his wife sometimes “couldn’t handle it.”

She told the panel she felt “disgusted” by the exchange of messages but was forced to respond in a “lighthearted way” because she did not yet have a contract.

Ms MacDonald told the panel she did not think the dinner proposal was a joke and that he had only said it to distract from the fact that his invitation was “inappropriate”.

After more messages, he said he was “a man of action” and that he didn’t like “picking up women.”

In May 2021, Ms MacDonald signed her contract and started working, but he continued to message her in the evenings, saying: ‘Women are so good at making excuses that I’m bored’.

The panel heard that during her first week he also sent demanding messages outside her contracted hours.

He was also ‘not happy’ that she still had a part-time job as a singing teacher and ‘regularly’ expressed how much he hated that his previous PA did too much work outside the home.

After being criticized for 30 minutes, MacDonald sent him a message saying the way he treated her had “moved her to tears.”

The panel heard that when he received the message he ‘dropped everything’ to come to the office to ‘train’ her further, but that later that day he ‘reprimanded’ her for not checking her phone and dealing with last-minute bookings.

The following week he compared her to his old PA again, and it only got worse.

Mrs MacDonald said that ‘the nagging, the pushiness, the constant name-calling and belittling of me increased’.

Her mental health deteriorated ‘sharply’ as a result: she could not sleep, cried, suffered from migraines and had suicidal thoughts.

The panel heard she was “afraid” to take calls from Mr Khan but knew she would be reprimanded if she did not answer the phone.

After she burst into tears again, her family advised her to contact ACAS.

Mr Khan continued to message her despite her telling him she was not feeling well.

She checked her messages and saw that he had fired her the night before, but that he was already planning to resign because of “bullying, derogatory comments and intimidation.”

When she raised the issue, Khan said the allegations were “baseless,” that he would sue her for defamation and that she was “associating with the wrong person.”

The Crown Court in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, found his messages were ‘abusive, threatening, harassing and admonishing’.

The court panel found that Ms MacDonald had been sexually harassed when Mr Khan asked her if she had children before offering her the job.

The commission also ruled in her favor on the allegations of sexual harassment.

They concluded: ‘We accept [Ms MacDonald]’s statement that many of Mr Khan’s messages were unwanted, which she found demeaning and belittling, but to which she felt she had to respond quickly and light-heartedly to convince him to give her the job.

‘We believe that she was essentially walking a tightrope, trying to demonstrate her energy and enthusiasm for the job while at the same time trying to turn down what included invitations from [Mr Khan] to have dinner with him, stay with him in his apartment in Turkey and ‘do all the fun stuff’, as well as direct references to his sexual needs.’

According to the panel, Khan’s messages indicate “a lack of respect and objectification of women.”

She also won a claim for unfair dismissal.

A hearing will be held later to determine her damages.