The Sun reports the barmaid in question – Kate Hanna, who was employed at the Bird & Beer bar in East Yorkshire – wrote on Facebook that she was fired from her job for refusing to wear a bra. Hanna claimed an inappropriate sexual remark was made to her, while her manager dealt with the situation by telling her she would not be allowed into work in future unless she wore a bra.

For their part, in a statement on their Facebook page, Bird & Beer said they could confirm that no employees have been dismissed from the company regarding Hanna’s allegations.

The bar added it has a duty of care to protect all of its employees from any discrimination or sexual harassment within the workplace. It takes any comments towards employees very seriously and acts upon them immediately in a professional manner.

Commenting on the case, Charlotte Farrell, associate solicitor at law firm Coffin Mew, told Recruiter in a statement while responsibility to dismiss a worker normally lies with the manager taking the decision, recruiters still need to be aware of following instructions from clients that could lead to potential discrimination occurring.

“When asked to place candidates in the service sector, recruiters should be careful of instructions that an employer intends to implement a dress code for successful applicants, which could unjustifiably single out specific groups, or a request that an employer only wants a particular type of employee – ie. female, young, those with particular physical characteristics,” Farrell said.

“Such requests could be potentially discriminatory and the Equality Act 2010 specifically states that where an employment relationship is concerned, it is an offence for someone to knowingly help someone else to do something that is discriminatory. As a reminder, the protected characteristics are far reaching and cover age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

“When asked to provide such specific candidates, recruiters should only follow such a request if completely satisfied that the company making the request has confirmed that they are not discriminating and the recruiter feels it is reasonable to follow the request. In practice, we’d always recommend this was done in writing and that the recruiter sought advice before following any instructions which could potentially be discriminatory.”

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