Toni and Guy Hairdresser Offered £10,000 for Sex by Boss Wins Compensation

By Toyin Owoseje: Subscribe to Toyin's

February 18, 2013 6:31 PM GMT

Mrs Mashayekhi worked at Toni and Guy salon in Sheffield city centre before being signed off unfit with severe depression in November, 2010.
Maryam Mashayekhi worked at a Toni and Guy salon in Sheffield before being signed off unfit with severe depression

A trainee hairdresser whose boss offered her £10,000 to sleep with him has won £20,500 in compensation.

Maryam Mashayekhi, who worked at the Toni and Guy salon in Sheffield city centre, claimed she was the victim of sexual and racial harassment at the hands of her former manager, Christopher Story, for six months in 2010.

Iranian-born Mashayekhi recalled one day when Story propositioned her as they sat in a car outside a client's home.

She told an employment tribunal he said to her: "How much money do you want to have sex?

"Are you having sex for £1,000. What about £2,000 or £10,000?"

Mashayekhi claimed that the proposal angered and humiliated her.

"I said no, not even for £20,000," she told the Sheffield employment tribunal.

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"I love my husband. I felt totally humiliated and upset by his questions.

"Mr Story got hold of some money, gave me the money as if he was paying me, got hold of the back of my head and pushed it down towards his groin. I was horrified by this and immediately pulled away.

"He said he was having a joke and giving the lady something to look at. I was livid."

Mashayekhi quit after six months at the Toni & Guy franchise in 2010 citing severe depression.

She said: "I come from a country where I didn't have rights. Here everybody has theirs. I was fighting for mine."

She also claimed that Story called her "stupid" on a daily basis and that she lost her self-confidence.

Story, a married father of two, said the sex allegation was "wildly inaccurate and extremely offensive".

"I did not offer to pay her in return for sex nor did I push her head towards my groin," he told the panel.

The Sheffield employment tribunal found Story, 39, guilty of inappropriate conduct.

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