Job applicant who called himself ‘most qualified person’ for role loses claim

A job applicant who called himself the “most qualified person in the UK” for a senior manager role at a cosmetics brand has accused the firm of using child labour and likening him to a “dirty old man”, an employment tribunal heard.

David Hughes lost his age discrimination claim against Whitmans Laboratories Limited, the manufacturing arm of Estee Lauder, after a failed job interview in February 2023 aged 68.

Mr Hughes, who said that he has worked for companies such as Biosynex and Rolls Royce, brought the employment tribunal proceedings claiming he was “trashed” by the interviewer Sharon Gollan because of his age.

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He alleged that Ms Gollan had informed him there was a workforce who were predominantly of 16 to 18 years of age and described the manufacturing process as being “akin to an underage sweat shop”, a Birmingham employment tribunal heard.

Mr Hughes said the fact Whitmans Laboratories Limited has an alleged underage workforce is “disgraceful” and that by the end of the interview, Ms Gollan said she would not ever let him near any of “her girls”, the tribunal was told.

He interpreted this to mean that he was akin to a “dirty old man” who was unsafe to be around girls, which he believed “trashed him”.

Mr Hughes alleged that the interview was for the firm to see if the applicant was a “model in term of looks and age and whether they drove Range Rovers or not”, the tribunal heard.

He said that a fellow applicant who he had been in touch with via his “Indian contacts”, was a 40-year-old man called Mr Abbott from Mumbai who got a second interview despite being “lesser qualified”.

The tribunal heard that Mr Hughes described himself as being the most qualified person in the UK for the job role – a senior manager, Quality Operations.

On a few occasions during the hearing, Mr Hughes referred to Mr Abbott as “Mr India” or “Mr Mumbai”, which the judge said was “impolite”.

The tribunal judge was not persuaded that Mr Abbott exists or ever existed.

Ms Gollan believed Mr Hughes “was not a good fit” because she considered him “patronising/superior, rigid, not visionary, not engaging or empowering and basically dictatorial in style”, the tribunal heard.

No one was ever offered the position.

The tribunal judge said there was “nothing inherently discriminatory about any of those reasons”, adding that “there is simply no evidence to suggest that age was a factor”.

The judge added:” The evidence given by the claimant, in general, was far-fetched and had little or no support in any other evidential way. There is no evidence supporting the respondent having a child workforce on its manufacturing lines.”

He went on: “The claimant also made far-fetched allegations, again entirely without any other supporting evidence, that the stage one interview was simply to see whether a person was good looking, young or supportive enough of the child labour approach to get a stage two interview.

“This is not plausible based upon what we have seen and heard, and we do not believe the respondent had that approach.”