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A British bank on Wednesday was ordered to pay compensation to a manager who was terminated for uttering the N-word during the lender’s race-education training.
Carl Borg-Neal, 58, was fired by Lloyds Banking Group in July 2021 after he said the N-word in front of around 100 other bank managers who attended the class, according to Bloomberg.
“The most common example being use of the N-word in the black community,” Borg-Neal, who is white, said in the class, though he uttered the word in full.
Though he apologized immediately, one woman who led the session was left filled with “incredulity, rage and sadness” by Borg-Neal’s use of the word — so much so that she needed to take a week off from work, according to the Daily Mail.
The bank cited the woman’s leave as a “key reason” to fire Borg-Neal, accusing him of gross misconduct.
However, a London employment tribunal ruled that Lloyds should have issued a warning to Carl Borg-Neal instead of dismissing him for using the slur, according to Bloomberg News.
The training session took place just over a year after the racial unrest sparked by the fatal arrest of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The judges sitting on the London Central Employment Tribunal ruled that Borg-Neal uttered the slur as part of a question about “the use of the N-word by black people in rap lyrics or to each other when playing basketball.”
The judges accepted Borg-Neal’s contention that his dyslexia can lead him to blurt out thoughts without being mindful of others’ reactions.
“He lost a job where he had found he could excel with his dyslexia,” the judges ruled.
Borg-Neal’s dyslexia also entitles him to protections under UK laws governing the rights of disabled employees, the judges ruled.
Borg-Neal — a former mayor of the town Andover, about 200 miles west of London — is expected to receive a significant sum in damages from the bank. Judges are expected to rule on the size of the payout in October.
His attorney, Emma Hamnett, said that the firing had a “devastating effect” on her client’s mental health.
“He explained over and again to Lloyds that his use of the N-word in full was not intentional, not intended to cause upset and he offered many apologies,” Hamnett said.
Lloyds has reportedly indicated that it will appeal the ruling.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy on any racial discrimination or use of racist language,” the bank told The Post in a statement.
