Hostess duties `were sex discrimination'

A MANAGER'S secretary said she was rostered to act as a hostess during company meetings and serve coffee and sandwiches, while her male colleagues were not.

Sheila Toon, 51, was claiming constructive dismissal and sexual discrimination at a tribunal in Exeter, Devon yesterday. She said that she had resigned from Jersey European Airways (JEA) last year because she believed the way she was treated was derogatory. "Male colleagues on the same grade were not approached to do hostess duties," she said.

JEA's personnel manager, Maria Costello, told the tribunal that Ms Toon was on the rota because she was a manager's secretary, not because she was a woman. "If one of the manager's secretaries had been male he would have been included on that rota," she said.

The case continues.