A long-serving Sainsbury’s store manager has been awarded nearly £12,000 after an employment tribunal found he was unfairly treated when his boss left him out of a social media post celebrating male leaders in the company. Darren Cooper, who managed the supermarket’s Pontypridd branch in south Wales, told a tribunal that the omission left him feeling “excluded, humiliated and violated” while he was already on sick leave due to anxiety. The panel ruled he should receive £11,852 in compensation, including £7,500 for injury to feelings, according to the BBC.
A post meant to celebrate male leaders
The dispute centred on a post shared in November 2022 by Cooper’s regional director, Matt Hourihan, on LinkedIn and the company’s internal Yammer platform. In the message, Hourihan said he wanted to “celebrate the male leaders” across Sainsbury’s stores in south Wales and England. He wrote:“All of you do this whilst leading busy lives outside of work too, dealing with health, family and personal issues in the same way that everyone else does, yet you all show up for work each day, put on a name badge and provide support, guidance and leadership to the thousands of colleagues that work on our region.” The post included photographs of every regional store manager who was named and tagged, except Cooper. At the time, he had been off work since July 2022 because of anxiety.
Decades at the supermarket
Cooper had worked for Sainsbury’s since 1993, telling the tribunal he effectively had “orange blood” in his veins after decades of service to the retailer. He became manager of the Pontypridd store near Cardiff in 2010, overseeing the branch for more than a decade before going on sick leave. When he later saw the International Men’s Day post online, Cooper said the omission caused significant distress. He told the tribunal the incident led to “untold further damage” to his health and described the “angst” of having to respond to friends and colleagues who contacted him to ask whether he had left the company.
Tribunal: omission linked to his absence
The tribunal, which was held in Cardiff, concluded that the decision to leave Cooper out of the post stemmed from what it described as the “conscious thought process” of his manager. According to the panel, that meant the treatment amounted to “unfavourable treatment because of something arising from disability.” Employment Judge Rhian Brace said the tribunal accepted Cooper’s evidence about how the incident affected him. “He gave statement evidence that he felt excluded, humiliated and violated by the post and that he had felt he had been excluded because he was absent,” the judge said. She added that it was reasonable for him, as a senior store manager, to feel humiliated in those circumstances, particularly as nothing had prevented his boss from mentioning the post when speaking to him the day before it appeared online.
Manager’s explanation
Hourihan argued that Cooper had deleted WhatsApp and said he did not wish to be contacted while on leave, which led him to believe it would be inappropriate to include him in the post or ask for a photograph. He also said he did not have a picture of Cooper available to use. The tribunal said it had sympathy for Hourihan’s position, but ultimately concluded that the decision still resulted in unfavourable treatment linked to Cooper’s disability.
Legal claims and outcome
After several discussions about returning to work, Cooper was dismissed in June 2023. He subsequently brought a case against Sainsbury’s alleging disability discrimination, harassment, unfavourable treatment and unfair dismissal. The tribunal ruled in his favour on claims of harassment related to disability and unfavourable treatment arising from disability, awarding him compensation totalling £11,852. However, his claims for disability discrimination and unfair dismissal were rejected.
