Chef assault on female colleague brushed away by bar managers
A female bar manager in Wales has sustained permanent nerve damage leaving her unable to smile after a chef choked her until she passed out.
The incident happened during a staff Christmas party last year at The Cameo Club in Cardiff.
CCTV footage of the incident shows chef Nathan Webb putting 23-year-old Molly Phillips into a headlock. She struggles briefly before her arms go stiff and she slumps into her attacker’s arms, seemingly unconscious. After he releases her, she falls to the floor and hits her head before colleagues rush to her aid.
Phillips returned to work after the incident, but developed post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. She also learnt she is suffering from permanent facial paralysis and will never be able to smile properly again. She was eventually forced to resign.
Despite being arrested over the assault, Webb managed to keep his job, with the pub’s boss making jokes about incident saying he heard Webb had been “choking girls lately”. Another bar manager, Huw Davies, told the young woman to “get over it” as he couldn’t “wave a magic wand and fix everything”.
This week an employment tribunal ruling has found Phillips was unfairly dismissed, and that her bosses failed to properly investigate her claims regarding the assault.
Judge Alison Frazer criticised both managers for their treatment of the victim.
“I find that from April onwards Mr Davies acted in a way which was dismissive of the claimant’s feelings about the incident,” she said.
Sheridan Randall, 10th December 2018
