Sainsbury's worker wins £12,000 after boss left him out of social media post

A Sainsbury's worker has been awarded close to £12,000 after his boss left him out of a social media post celebrating International Men's Day.

Darren Cooper sued his boss, regional director Matt Hourihan, for disability discrimination after he was omitted from a LinkedIn post celebrating male leaders across the company.

Cooper, who had worked for the supermarket chain since he was a teenager, had been on sick leave for anxiety since July 2022 and had deleted his WhatsApp, with Mr Hourihan claiming that he felt it would have been inappropriate to include him or ask him for a photograph to be used in the post.

It read: "I'd like to take a moment to celebrate the male leaders in my team and say thank you for all that you do to help make our stores."

The post added: "All of you do this whilst leading busy lives outside of work too, dealing with health, family and personal issues in the same way that everyone else does, yet you all show up for work each day, put on a name badge and provide support, guidance and leadership to the thousands of colleagues that work on our region."

He had ran the Pontypridd store near Cardiff (Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

After more than two decades of service, which left Mr Cooper with 'orange blood', he suggested that his omission left him feeling 'excluded, humiliated and violated'.

Employment Judge Rhian Brace said: "He gave statement evidence that he felt excluded, humiliated and violated by the post and that he had felt he had been excluded because he was absent."

He also claimed that the post also caused him to suffer 'untold further damage' to his health along with the 'angst' of having to answer questions from friends and colleagues about whether he had left Sainsbury's on a permanent basis.

The tribunal did have sympathy for Mr Hourihan's defence, but eventually ruled that he should receive £11,852 in compensation, including £7,500 for injury to feelings.

He had worked for Sainsbury's since 1993 (Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

"Whilst the Tribunal again has sympathy with [Mr Hourihan's] position, we nonetheless accepted [Mr Cooper's] evidence that having people contact him caused him to feel excluded," EJ Brace said.

"It was reasonable for [Mr Cooper], as a senior Store Manager, in those circumstances for him to feel humiliated as a result, particularly when there had been nothing to have prevented Matt Hourihan from telling [Mr Cooper] of the post when speaking to him the day prior."

In June 2023, he was eventually dismissed from the company and he later sued for disability discrimination, harassment, unfavourable treatment and unfair dismissal, and won his claim for harassment related to disability and unfavourable treatment because of something arising in consequence of disability.

However, his claims of disability discrimination and unfair dismissal were dismissed by the tribunal.