[News] Transgender woman sues Sainsbury over claims store worker pointed at her and said ‘look at the state of that’

A transgender woman is suing Sainsbury’s for £2,000 after claiming a store worker pointed at her and said ‘look at the state of that’.

Katie Yeomans said the alleged remark made by the store delivery driver as she walked her dog past one of the supermarket giant’s stores in Portsmouth, left her ‘angry and humiliated.’

The 68-year-old, who also said she knew ’ the ‘derogatory comment’ was made about her, reported the ‘hate incident’ to police but due to a ‘lack of evidence’, no further action was taken by Hampshire Constabulary.

Hampshire Police confirmed it had received a report about the incident, which it said happened on July 3 and said ‘words of advice have been provided’.

 

After contacting the police, Miss Yeomans then wrote a letter about the ‘totally unacceptable behaviour’ of the worker to Simon Roberts, the chief executive of Sainsbury’s.

 

But after being left dissatisfied by the response she received, Miss Yeomans is now taking the shop to court for £2,000 in damages for harassment as she believes companies ‘say they are for equality, but are not in practice’.

Miss Yeomans, of Portsmouth, Hampshire, said: ‘There was a delivery taking place and the store worker shouted to the delivery driver and said “Oi, look at the state of that”, whilst pointing at me.

 

‘The incident made me feel very angry and humiliated, and even worse was the response that I had from Sainsbury’s which contained no empathy and basically a complete denial that the incident took place.’

Miss Yeomans said the response to her first letter of complaint contained nothing constructive and it was only when she reported the incident to police that someone from Sainsbury’s got in touch with her saying they would set up a meeting with a regional manager so she could discuss the incident with them.

 

She later called the store, in Palmerston Road, Portsmouth, about the meeting, but it n

ldidn’t take place.

 

Miss Yeomans, who started her transition in 2014, said: ‘Initially it would have been nice to have an apology and meet with them to discuss equality and training issues.

‘But the way I’ve been treated, their response was very abrupt and there was no equality.

‘There has been no empathy which I think is quite disgusting for a national company.’

 

When asked about the case, a Sainsbury’s spokesperson today said: ‘We are committed to treating all our customers with respect.

 

‘We take allegations of this nature extremely seriously and launched an immediate investigation at the time of the alleged incident.’

 

Miss Yeomans said she decided to sue the store because she felt it was not listening to her complaints.

 

She said: ‘I am not suing them for the money. It it the final stage – I wrote to them initially then I sent a letter before action. They are not listening – they do not really care and yet when pride comes round they are wearing the flags. ‘It’s a matter of principle.’

Referring to the other occasions when Miss Yeomans has threatened other companies with legal action, she said: ‘I’ve been in this situation many times before with other companies, unfortunately, and I find companies say they’re for equality, but they’re not in practice.