People don't claim sexual harassment lightly. Most think it's just not worth it

Recent workplace scandals, including at McDonald's, suggest the problem is rife, writes Philip Collins, but too much bad behaviour is still going unreported

- Philip Collins

At a tribunal in Southampton last week, Robert Watson, a software engineer at Roke Manor Research, won his case for unlawful dismissal under the Equality Act 2010 on the grounds of disability discrimination.

The case led to ill-informed accusations that the manager involved in the legal action had been punished for sighing at an employee. This is a common accusation made against claims of sexual harassment; that, although once upon a time the office was rife with unpleasant sexual approaches, these days nobody can so much as look at another colleague without inviting a lawsuit. In point of fact, the number of cases of harassment brought to employment tribunals has been stable for a decade.

So what is the truth, in law and in practice, about cases of sexual harassment?

What is the law?

Sexual harassment did not feature in UK law until June 1986. The Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) of 1975 had made it unlawful to treat a woman "less favourably" than a man but made no mention of sexual harassment. In December 1983, the Labour MP Jo Richardson introduced a private member's bill on sexual harassment to the Commons but a predominantly male chamber did not allow the bill a second reading.

Sexual harassment instead came into statute through case law. In 1986, Jean Porcelli, a school laboratory technician employed by Strathclyde regional council, brought a case against the lewd insults of two male colleagues that three judges in the court of session ruled constituted sexual harassment under the terms of the 1975 legislation.