Google employee made redundant after reporting sexual harassment, court hears

After reporting a boss who told clients stories about his swinger lifestyle and showed a nude of his wife, a senior Google employee said she was made redundant. Victoria Woodall told a labour tribunal that the corporation had been exposed to a campaign of retaliation after whistleblowing against the man who was later dismissed. According to evidence seen by the BBC in court, the manager had kissed two female employees without their permission, and his conduct amounted to sexual assault. The tech giant denies retaliating against Woodall, and claims she became paranoid after whistleblowing and began to view normal business operations as "sinister.

Woodall claims that her own boss treated her to a relentless campaign of revenge after she retaliation threatened his close friends who were later suspended for reporting the manager's behavior and refusing to challenge it. Woodall's allegations of a boys' club culture were also included, as well as the fact that until December 2022, Google had been funding a men's only chairman's lunch in the Google said an internal probe found no such culture in the company, and the case was ultimately cancelled because it was no longer in accordance with its policies. In the coming weeks, a decision from the London Central Employment Tribunal will be released.

'Swingers'

Woodall spent time as a senior market manager in Google's UK Sales and Agencies team. According to her account, a black woman she had sex with in August 2022 was approached by a female client who said that during a company lunch, he was told of the number of black women she had met in August. According to summary notes of Google's probe, he and his wife were swingers and also explained how they had sex with two women they encountered on the beach on holiday. According to court papers, the client said the talk was spontaneous and occurred in front of his line manager who did nothing to discourage him, describing their behavior as

disgusting. Woodall revealed the client's suspicions to her boss Matt Bush, then managing director of the agency team, and Google opened an internal probe into the manager's conduct. Woodall received a second lawsuit from another female client who said the same boss had given her a

picture of his wife's vagina" while scrolling through images on his phone, according to her.

The report

According to emails, notes, and a copy of Google's investigation, the company interviewed 12 people as part of its probe and found more cases that it found amounted to sexual harassment in violation of company policies. The boss was found to have sexually assaulted two female employees during a work function, where he reportedly kissed one colleague's leg during etiastle and rubbed another colleague''s back and shoulder, both without their knowledge. He had reportedly made inappropriate remarks to staff, including telling a female colleague he had met for the first time that he was in an open marriage and that if she had

sex with him in the bathroom, his wife would be interested in learning about it. According to the , the manager denied the allegations during Google's investigation and said he did not know he shared with his coworkers that he has an open relationship with his wife. According to legal documents, he was suspended for gross misconduct, although his line manager and another senior colleague were given

documented coaching" for failure to intervene. They were both later made redundant.

'Boys' club'

Woodall claims that shortly after reporting the sexual assault in 2022, her boss, Matt Bush, gave her no choice but to replace her flourishing client account with a failing one, though one of the two coworkers was expected to face discipline following her whistleblowing. The court heard that she referred to the step as a poisoned chalice that had left her vulnerable to redundancy. She claims she was then promoted to a subordinate role on a huge internal initiative assisting the other senior manager whose report had been implicated. According to her account, her boss later attempted to downgrade her results in the course of other retribution steps. Bush said in his witness address that he always supported Woodall's work and took pride and gender equity in recruiting pipelines and promotions seriously, adding that it was common practice to regularly move accounts between the team.

'Way to exit people'

According to legal documents, Google initiated a redundancy procedure in 2023 that resulted in the departures of her boss and one of the senior managers who failed to disclose the sexual harassment. Woodall expressed reservations about a boys' club culture and the retaliation she was facing to the top of the company in May this year. She claims she spoke with Debbie Weinstein, then vice president of Google UK and Ireland, after learning from a HR colleague that she was worried about the team and the experiences of women, according to her witness testimony. Weinstein, the current president of Europe, Middle East, and Africa, appeared stunned by Woodall's assertions following their discussion. According to court papers, she contacted Vicki [Woodall]:

Just met Vicki[/WodAll]. Holy moly. Today, I need to get you for ten minutes.

Then, in November 2023, as Google gears for a broader reorganisation and redundancy process, Woodall says there was a final effort to exclude her from the agency team. Weinstein sent Dyana Najdi, Google's managing director for UK and Ireland advertising, a letter this month, saying: "Keep pushing. According to messages of their discussion submitted to court, there is a way to run a process, including agency [Woodall's team] [Waitall't team]]. Woodall was made redundant alongside the second senior manager implicated in the misconduct probe in March 2024, but the firm's continued employees receive long-term sickness compensation for work-related stress, according to her testimony. Woodall was made redundant for whistleblowing, according to Google's argument, who said that her position was one of 26 across the team and wider department closed. Weinstein's attempt to make Woodall redundant, according to her, she was extremely supportive of her and sparked the inquiry into the agency's culture. Woodall's investigation of misconduct was an act of whistleblowing, but the company denies any retaliation against her, arguing that the subsequent events were entirely normal business decisions.