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John Cooper said he warned his bosses that his move would aggravate his medical condition |
Happy in Holborn, but transfer to Hampstead made surveyor dizzy
Discrimination claim by vertigo sufferer who was forced into a job swap by council
A LONG-SERVING council surveyor suffered dizzying spells of vertigo when he was transferred from his Holborn office up to Hampstead, an employment tribunal heard this week.
John Cooper, 46, is claiming he suffered disability discrimination and harassment by Camden Council after they refused to allow him to go back to work in his old offices in Holborn.
Mr Cooper said he had warned his bosses the move to Hampstead would aggravate the effects of the disorienting Meniere’s disease which he suffered from – but this was disputed by the council.
He told a tribunal on Monday: “Everything in Hampstead was new to my senses. I felt like I was walking on spongy ground.
“I was nauseous. Sometimes it felt like I was walking on board a ship – it was vertigo.”
Colleagues told the tribunal at Victory House in Holborn how Mr Cooper suffered from daily dizziness in Hampstead while he did not have any such problems when working in the south of the borough.
Mr Cooper, who lives in Walthamstow, began work for the council in 1993 but in 2002 was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear that causes vertigo.
He had been covering the Holborn district for seven years but was forced into a job swap with a colleague in the Hampstead office last January.
Mr Cooper said that he straight away found the area disorientating, but instead of being moved back to his old office, he was asked to take on dozens of extra maintenance jobs in the area after the council ordered a major review of council estate walls following the death of Saurav Ghai, the two-year-old who was crushed under a falling wall in Gospel Oak last year.
Mr Cooper was also told to assess work on Hampstead roof tops, despite pleading with his superiors to wait for a report from the council’s occupational health department on his condition.
In the smaller Holborn district, Mr Cooper was used to walking to each job – but in hilly Hampstead he regularly needed to catch the bus. Medical statements presented to the tribunal revealed that public transport would “exacerbate his Meniere’s disease”.
Mr Cooper’s journey to Hampstead made him feel unwell, disorientated by a number of train changes. “There are only two carriages on the Barking line and often it was so busy I’d have to let two or three pass before I got to Gospel Oak,” he said.
“With Meniere’s disease you have problems distinguishing between lines and stairs. I would encounter a lot of tiled walkways in the subway at Gospel Oak.”
After two days in the Hampstead office, Mr Cooper went sick with vertigo and took three weeks off in the next two months complaining of heightened vertigo symptoms, despite taking regular medication.
Sean Pettit, representing the council, queried why Mr Cooper did not have a Blue Badge – a special car ticket allowing free parking anywhere for the disabled – and asked why Mr Cooper had not complained about Meniere’s disease affecting his work before.
He suggested that his managers could have been forgiven for thinking Mr Cooper was simply “making it up”, adding: “It is inconceivable that in just two days of working in Hampstead you suddenly say you have to stop work.”
Mr Pettit put it to Mr
Cooper that in his seven years’ service he had not raised his Meniere’s disease in any formal way. It was therefore reasonable for managers to think there was very little wrong with him, the tribunal heard. At no stage had he registered problems about his journey. The council claims that Mr Cooper did not want to work in Hampstead because of a “strained relationship” with the manager there.
Mr Cooper’s colleague Ann Quinlan gave evidence that his boss Maurice Jones had “taken the mickey” out of Mr Cooper’s disability during an “email war” between the pair.
Mr Jones was unable to give evidence on the harassment claim due to his own current sick leave. Camden was warned his absence will be a “disadvantage” to its case.
Mr Cooper said he was seeking compensation for his health but was more interested in being allowed to file his work from home in future so that he could avoid using public transport frequently.
The hearing which started on Monday is expected to last until the end of the week. |
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