ANOTHER VOICE
When harassment is better seen as an issue of privacy
AUBER ON WAUGH
Perhaps it is because she has a face of sweetness and serenity, almost a rare, elfin beauty, as revealed in a Daily Telegraph photograph of Friday 6 August, that I found myself concerned for Miss Leesa Lemm, a 27-year-old computer analyst in Osterley, who was the key witness in a wrongful dismissal suit brought by Dr Michael Haughney, 30, another computer analyst, accused of harassing her sexually.
It is my observation that women who complain of sexual harassment are more often than not revoltingly ugly. I do not intend on this occasion to discuss why this should be so, but it may detract from the credibility of their claims. Miss Lemm, with whom Haughney claimed to have had a `passionate affair' during a training course, was described by her employer as timid and reluctant to make a formal complaint of sexual harassment. 'She did not wish to bring this case against Dr Haughney. She just wanted him to leave her alone.' Miss Lemm (I dare not describe the possessor of such a fine nose as `Lemm') denied any such affair, saying it was a figment of Haughney's imagination.
Miss Lemm is a Jehovah's Witness. Some may decide this adds poignancy to her appeal, but I am not so sure. Jehovah's Witnesses are not to be confused with Quakers or the Salvation Army. They are more like Moonies, and rather horrible for the most part. I am sorry Miss Lemm has been caught by them, but it does not add or subtract from the justice of her complaint.
There is nothing involved in sexual harassment which was not covered by the simpler concept of rudeness. A good employer has always rid himself of employ- ees who were rude or made themselves objectionable to other members of staff. Since the definition of sexual harassment, however, it has become another weapon in the armoury of the ugly or embittered female wishing to revenge herself on the male sex. It is almost entirely women-orien- tated. A man who calls a woman 'darling', or 'dear', or 'ducks' is liable, if the woman is unpleasant enough, to land in serious trouble. Any man who complained of the same endearments from a woman would be laughed at.
I have noticed that many women, as soon as they put on power-suiting and padded shoulders, are not only shameless in the exercise of favouritism but also ruthless in the cruelty with which they treat male employees they dislike — in a way which very few males would ever treat a female. This desire for revenge on the male sex, especially those judged inadequate, is prob- ably part of the career woman syndrome, but it is no less to be seen as sexual harass- ment for that reason.
However, nobody could possibly deny that Miss Lemm had cause for complaint. In addition to boasting about his alleged affair, Haughney bombarded her with mes- sages on her office computer and even at home. He argued that her complaint was malicious, citing the alleged one-night stand as proof. She persisted in claiming it was a figment of his imagination and the tribunal believed her.
We who did not attend the tribunal can- not know for certain, and it is notoriously difficult to prove a negative. If Haughney was lying about his affair he is plainly a nut- ter. That seems the most likely explanation. Even if not clinically insane, he may well be suffering from loss of sleep. But if he is telling the truth, he is something nastier altogether, and it is to this possibility that I wish to address myself. The principle at stake is not one of sexual harassment but one of privacy.
Anyone, of either sex, who publishes the details of a relationship with someone else — whether spouse, lover or friend — is plainly breaching that person's privacy, whether the account given is true or untrue. Lord Mackay's approach to a privacy law strikes me as pussyfooting on the one hand, and unacceptably protective of lawyers' interests on the other. He is right to deny legal aid, wildly wrong to suggest that priva- cy might be a suitable area for a contingen- cy fee system. In one leap we would plunge ourselves in the American nightmare. He is right to exclude the High Court except where exemplary damages are sought, wrong to suggest the County Court as the court of first instance.
The obvious place for the vast majority of privacy plaints is the Small Claims Court, where litigants need not be legally repre- sented at all, but where they can call their own witnesses, speak up for themselves or with the help of some local wiseacre
brought along as amicus curiae. Damages may be limited to £1,000, but that is exactly the sort of sum which, if I were in charge, Dr Haughney should have been made to pay to Miss Lemm. It may no longer be defamatory to impute unchastity in a single woman (or man for that matter), but it is unquestionably a breach of privacy to claim carnal knowledge. Even so, a payment of £800-£1,000 strikes me as being sufficient punishment, sufficient compensation.
Lord Mackay's present proposals do not protect 'ordinary people' because ordinary people are almost as unlikely to apply to the County Court as they are to the High Court. But it is also essential that the possi- bility of redress in the High Court should be retained as a means of punishing the tabloids for the frequent and deliberate efforts to destroy the domestic happiness of famous people by public revelation of their most private activities. The Sun put the case against legislation with its usual suc- cinctness: Lord Mackay claims this privacy law would protect ordinary people. But where is his evi- dence that they need protecting? No, the peo- ple who squeal loud and long are the politi- cians — the hypocrites who want to gag the Press. They want to hush up their indiscre- tions, their infidelities, their ineptitudes. That's what happens in France, where a pri- vacy law prevents papers from revealing the corruption and double standards in public life. Like pious President Mitterrand's affairs. Or even that Rudolph Nureyev had AIDS.
The Sun explains its right to broadcast presidential love affairs and ballet dancers' illnesses by the claim that it is 'the funda- mental role of a newspaper to be a torch shining into the darkest recesses of life'. I think we can leave it to the politicians to decide whether that puts altogether too much power in the hand which holds the torch. But aside from such weighty matters, Lord Mackay's worst mistake is to insist on the plaintiffs having suffered 'substantial distress'. My law will also cover the emo- tions of irritation, anger, vindictiveness, even greed. A'ny discussion of a relation- ship, true or false, will be a breach of priva- cy, and privacy will be so defined as to cover nuisance suffered from a neighbour's hi-fi set.
These machines, I would hazard, repre- sent a greater threat to more people's pri- vacy than all the forces of the press and nanny state combined.
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