City worker sacked after accidentally flashing genitals on video call
Many people have nightmares about going to a meeting only to find they are talking to the boss without wearing any underwear.
For one former City worker, the horror scenario became a reality.
An employee at the UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) was fired from his job after he accidentally flashed his genitals on a video call, an employment tribunal heard.
He was sacked from his £58,580-a-year job as a digital production manager after he stood up on a Teams call while trying to fix a cable behind his computer, without wearing any trousers.
In a ruling, the employment tribunal said: 'During the call, after approximately three minutes 26 seconds, the claimant stood to adjust a cable behind the computer and revealed he was wearing nothing from the waist down. His genitals were visible.'
He was fired after two people on the call, who were both Capgemini consultants based in India, complained about the incident to the FSCS the following week, leading to the launch of an internal investigation.
The inquiry found that the staffer had accidentally revealed his genitalia on the call due to being 'inappropriately dressed' and 'naked from the waist down'.
In seeking to explain the incident to his line manager, the FSCS staffer said in an email that he had not realised his camera was on when he stood up and that he had immediately closed his laptop when he became aware he was on video.
The worker, referred to as DB in the employment tribunal's ruling, was later fired from his job at the FSCS in January 2024, for breaching rules that require employees be dressed appropriately.
He subsequently filed a complaint against his former employer for unfair dismissal in February last year, while alleging he was also subject to racial discrimination while working at the City body.
In his defence, the employee claimed he should not be held culpable for accidentally flashing his genitals as the incident happened on a bank holiday, when he should not have been working.
The staffer, who was born in India, says he was also repeatedly rejected for internal job moves inside the FSCS due to his ethnicity. He also claimed that the fact he was forced to work on a bank holiday was further evidence of racial discrimination.
The employment tribunal dismissed claims he was unfairly sacked or subject to racial discrimination.
It instead ruled he was lawfully sacked from the FSCS over the incident on the video call.
The tribunal said: 'We find that the claimant chose not to wear either trousers or underwear on May 8 2022. Instead he deliberately chose to be naked from the waist down. This led to an obvious risk.
'The claimant was an employee in a leadership role. He was dealing with external consultants. He should have realised that being naked was inappropriate, regardless of any policy.'
The tribunal said the FSCS employee's claims of racial discrimination were factually inaccurate and not well founded, as it ruled he had, in fact chosen to work on the bank holiday, rather than being forced into doing so.
The case is the latest of a series of similar incidents involving video calls, including one involving one of the New Yorker magazine's longest-standing staff writers, who was sacked for allegedly masturbating on a Zoom call.
Jeffrey Toobin, one of America's most prominent legal authors and commentators, apologised for the 'embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera'.
Canadian politician William Amos apologised in 2021 after he was spotted urinating during a parliamentary meeting on Zoom.
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