City banker 'offered £10,000 to quit'

A City bank employee has received an out-of-court settlement after claiming she was the victim of repeated sexual and racial harassment.

She also claimed she was overlooked for promotion because of her Chinese accent and told by one female manager "you Oriental women are too skinny".

On another occasion she was allegedly reprimanded for being 10 minutes late with the comment: "In this country, people start work early, well before the official time."

Mrs Roberts, who is married and from Clapham, was made redundant from her £32,000-a-year post as a settlements officer following a reorganisation of her department.

A tribunal was this week due to hear her claims of race and sex discrimination, race victimisation and unfair dismissal. But an 11th-hour settlement was struck between the two parties.

While the details are subject to a confidentiality clause, Mrs Roberts is known to have accepted an undisclosed pay-out from West LB.

The Chinese-born British national started as a temp at the Moorgatebased firm in January 2000 and was promoted to the full-time staff in August of that year.

When her line manager left on maternity leave in May 2001 she asked her manager, Gavin Peacock, if she could be acting section head. Mr Peacock, she claimed, turned her down, saying: "Angie, even though you have been living in this country for a long time, as your mother tongue is not English you have problems in communicating."

In her witness statement, Mrs Roberts said: "My standard of spoken English was good enough for the job and Mr Peacock was stereotyping Chinese people as being unable to speak good English. I was aghast by his remark and extremely upset."

The discrimination is said to have continued when Mrs Roberts was allegedly offered a lift home by one of the managing directors in August

2002. She claimed she demanded to be dropped off after he placed his hand on her thigh. The following Monday, she said, she was called into his office and offered £10,000 to leave - which she refused.

One month later, another manager, Karen Everingham, is alleged to have told Mrs Roberts during a lunch break, "you Oriental women are too skinny".

Eventually, in June 2003 she was advised that her employment had been terminated. Mrs Roberts, who is now temping elsewhere, told the Evening Standard before the settlement: "I feel angry, badly treated and harassed for the last two years.

"I was given the push even though I was doing a good job and was valued by the clients. People from ethnic minorities are not listened to, they are just pushed aside. Something has to be done about this. I was doing a good job and was loyal."

The London Discrimination Unit's Richard Leong - who represented Mrs Roberts at Woburn Place Employment Tribunal - said before the deal was struck: "This is one of these racism and sexism in the City cases, where you have a rich and powerful bank which has virtually no idea about equal opportunities.

"The employees like my client work in fear, subject to discrimination, but they do not dare complain because they fear losing their jobs. We have a very strong case. There is a real problem in the City among big investment institutions." A spokesman for West LB denied the claims, saying: "We have absolute confidence in our people and our procedures. We regard these allegations as baseless, factually untrue and opportunistic."

Following yesterday's deal, both parties issued a statement confirming that the matter had been resolved "to everybody's satisfaction". The case has been stayed until 25 April, by which time West LB must have settled the payment to Mrs Roberts.