A supermarket has been ordered to pay €6,000 to a member of the Roma community from Romania for refusing him service in its store last year.
The Workplace Relations Commission ruled that the unnamed Centra supermarket, which is located in a provincial town, had discriminated against the customer on grounds of being a member of the Traveller/Roma community.
The man had accused the supermarket of breaching the Equal Status Act by refusing him service when he called to the outlet with his 13-year-old daughter on October 5th, 2023.
The supermarket rejected the claim and maintained the customer was asked to leave the premises after being abusive to staff and calling them “racists.”
However, the WRC said the supermarket’s account of events that the man became abusive and aggressive at the till for no apparent reason was “illogical".
CCTV footage
It claimed the evidence of witnesses on behalf of the supermarket was “unconvincing in several key aspects” including the deletion of the most crucial piece of CCTV footage and a denial of receiving registered post about the WRC case.
WRC adjudication officer, Thomas O’Driscoll, said he was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the supermarket had denied the customer service “based on a stereotype of persons with Roma heritage".
Mr O’Driscoll said it was likely that the supermarket staff knew the customer and his family were of Roma heritage as they had previously attended the store and lived locally.
However, he concluded that the staff were under instruction to deny the man service if he appeared in the store.
Ordering the supermarket to pay €6,000 compensation, the WRC said the humiliation which the man claimed he suffered in front of his young daughter was a “serious aggravating factor” and the award should be “dissuasive".
It ruled that the customer had established a prima facie case of discrimination on grounds of being a member of the Traveller/Roma community and that he had also been harassed over the manner of his subsequent ejection from the supermarket.
Complaint
However, it rejected the man’s claim that he had been victimised for having lodged a complaint on behalf of his wife in relation to an earlier incident in the same store.
In evidence, the complainant outlined how he was told by a female shop assistant when he went to the counter that he was not allowed in the store.
The WRC heard the complainant’s wife was barred from the supermarket over a previous incident in April 2023 when the owner had approached her about the disruptive behaviour of her children.
However, the man told the WRC that he felt humiliated by his own experience in the supermarket and contemplated moving his family out of the town because of the hurt.
Under cross-examination the man accepted that it was untrue for him to have accused the shop assistant of throwing his items on the ground.
The shop assistant told the WRC that she immediately felt anxious and intimidated as the customer approached her before he had said a word.
The woman denied telling him that he was barred from the shop and gave evidence that the issue had “nothing to do with nationality".
The assistant manager said he had asked the customer to “calm down” after hearing a commotion near the checkout before asking the customer to leave the store for being aggressive and calling staff “racists".
However, he accepted he had told gardaí that the customer became aggressive and called staff racists after he was told he had been barred.
Evidence
The owner of the supermarket gave evidence that he was not aware that the customer and his family were from the Roma community.
He estimated he had refused service to over 100 people, including both Irish and foreign nationals, for a variety of reasons over 18 years.
A Garda told the WRC that he had found the customer, who had made a 999 call, in a very irate mood when he arrived outside the shop.
He said the man accused him of being a racist while also being aggressive and standing too close to him.
The Garda said the man produced a copy of the Irish Constitution claiming he was Irish too and demanding his rights.
The WRC heard that the customer was not barred from the post office which the supermarket owner also operated next door to the Centra store.
In his ruling, Mr O’Driscoll said there was a fundamental conflict in the evidence but noted that the shop assistant’s verbal evidence was inconsistent with her written statement on a critical point for which she could give “no plausible reason".
Mr O’Driscoll described the evidence of the supermarket owner that he had never received two registered letters which had sought CCTV footage from the store as “implausible.”
The WRC official noted the businessman operated a post office but had made no further inquiries with either his employees or An Post about potential unlawful interference with registered post.
Mr O’Driscoll said he could reasonably infer that the non-release of the requested footage, shifted the burden of proof onto the supermarket.
While the customer was also inconsistent in his own evidence, the WRC claimed it preferred his version of events which were “cogent and persuasive".
