Your employer can be liable if colleagues harass you after you report a serious incident.
“House of Lords allowed the appeal, holding the negligence claim should proceed to trial.”
Protecting you from foreseeable harm at the hands of colleagues is part of your employer's duty too, not only harm stemming from management decisions. If they know, or reasonably should know, that a complaint led to you being harassed or retaliated against, acting on it isn't optional.
- Keep a written record of any change in how colleagues treat you after you raise a complaint, including dates and specific incidents.
- Report ongoing poor treatment to your employer directly and in writing, so there is a clear point at which they were told.
- Get advice early if the treatment continues or affects your health, since this can overlap with several different legal claims at once.
The situation
A fellow officer raped her while she was off duty. Afterwards, despite everything, she reported him to the police. After she made her complaint, she says colleagues and superiors turned on her. She was ostracised, intimidated, and treated unfairly at work because she had broken an unwritten rule by accusing another officer. Her employer knew about it, she said, or had every reason to know — and did nothing.
What the court found
The House of Lords held that this was a case her employer should have to answer at trial. The law can require an employer to step in and protect an employee from harm caused by colleagues — harassmentUnwanted behaviour related to a protected characteristic, such as your sex, race, disability, age or religion, that violates your dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile or humiliating environment... or retaliation included — as soon as the employer knows, or has reason to know, it is going on. This duty exists separately from any claim under discrimination law. It does not matter that the harm came from co-workers rather than a management decision. Negligence can be established where an employer failed to take reasonable steps against a foreseeable risk of harm, psychiatric injury included.
Waters (A.P.) v Commissioner of Police For The Metropolis [2000] UKHL 50