>Carl Borg-Neal can’t get out his words. Tears fall down his cheeks and he is overcome by an involuntary verbal tic, as if he is choking or has momentarily forgotten how to speak. He is 59 years old and out of work, having been sacked by his employer, Lloyds Bank, for inadvertently blurting out the N word during an anti-racism training session.
>An employment tribunal ruled that Lloyds had unfairly dismissed Mr Borg-Neal and discriminated against him on account of his dyslexia, which leads him to “spurt things out before he loses his train of thought”. He has been awarded damages of almost £500,000. Combined with Lloyds’ legal costs, and tax, the bank faces a bill close to £1 million.
>The cash is of some comfort to Mr Borg-Neal, a vindication of his campaign to clear his name. What he really wanted, however, was his old job back and he wishes the bank would simply say sorry for sacking him. Without the apology, the allegation that he is racist hangs over his head.
>“It is kind of a double-edged sword. When I set out on this legal claim, I said to my mum: ‘If I have to sell my house, I don’t care because this is about clearing my name. Lloyds were calling me racist and that is certainly something I am not and something I have never been,” said Mr Borg-Neal, who is also a Conservative councillor in his local borough council in Andover, Hants.
>After a career spanning 30 years with Lloyds and its affiliates, Mr Borg-Neal believes that the bank has treated him like a “pariah” – he was told not to contact former colleagues and friends in the aftermath of that fateful training session on July 16 2021. It has taken Mr Borg-Neal more than two years to win his compensation through a courtroom ordeal that, at one stage, risked him facing financial ruin.
>“I feel very discriminated against,” he said. “I often wonder if I wasn’t a white middle-aged male would I have had to go through everything I went through. There is no way of telling. But when I talk to my friends – and as you can imagine a good many are white, middle-aged and male – we all agree that is the worst thing you can be right now. You are bottom of everything.”
>The employment tribunal vindicated Mr Borg-Neal in a 46-page judgment that raises serious questions about how major institutions such as Lloyds Bank tackle “very sensitive issues” that arise during diversity training.
>It was about an hour into the online training session – attended virtually by about 100 Lloyds managers – during a discussion about “intent vs effect” that Mr Borg-Neal asked how to handle a situation should he hear someone from an ethnic minority use a word that would be offensive if used by someone not of the same ethnicity. When the trainer did not appear to understand the question, Mr Borg-Neal said by way of explanation: “The most common example being [the] use of the N word in the black community.”
>“Unfortunately,” pointed out the tribunal, “the claimant used the full word rather than the abbreviation.”
>The bank accepted the comment was made without malice and that the question was valid. The employment judge said Mr Borg-Neal’s dyslexia was a “strong factor causing how he expressed himself in a session and in his use of the full word rather than finding a means to avoid it”.
>The trainer was left “badly distressed” and took almost a week off work. But some colleagues at the training session questioned her reaction. According to one attendant, Mr Borg-Neal was ”very much reprimanded in front of us all and when [he] tried to apologise or explain he was threatened with ‘you will be thrown off the course’”.
Another said: “I was shocked by the manner and tone used by one presenter to a colleague. After saying at the beginning this would be a safe environment and it is acknowledged we may make mistakes, she launched into a vitriolic attack. Whilst I do not condone what the colleague said … I believe he was trying to ask a valid question to aid understanding.”
>Mr Borg-Neal was taken aback by the trainer’s reaction. “She immediately went mad,” said Mr Borg-Neal, “I immediately tried to apologise. I said I didn’t mean to upset anybody. I tried to reword the question but she was just shouting at me. She was basically telling me to be quiet and if I didn’t shut up I would be thrown off the course. I bit the bullet and went quiet.”
>He remembers his feelings at the time, a mixture of “upset and anger” – upset that he had caused distress and angry that the trainer had “dealt with it in such an aggressive way”.
>A complaint reached Lloyds HR team and disciplinary procedures activated, although Mr Borg-Neal was never suspended and – as he points out – he continued to mentor two junior colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds until his final dismissal in December 2021, prompting his lengthy legal battle for justice.
>“I realised later on that once it had got back to HR which was dealing with the bank’s race action plan that I was doomed,” he said.
Mr Borg-Neal, who is convinced that Lloyds Bank had ‘wanted to make an example’ of him
>Mr Borg-Neal is convinced that the bank, which he first joined in 1993, had ‘wanted to make an example’ of him Credit: Paul Grover for the Telegraph
>He is convinced that the bank, which he first joined in 1993, had “wanted to make an example of me”. All the father of two wanted was his old job back. That and an apology. “It was my perfect job,” he said of his £55,000 a year role overseeing part of Lloyds’ payments systems.
>But after he won his case in the summer, Lloyds simply said that it would appeal the decision, issuing a statement that declared: “We have a zero-tolerance policy on any racial discrimination or use of racist language.”
>Mr Borg-Neal was devastated. “They sacked me and called me a racist and they are not withdrawing that even though everything says I am not and have never been. I find that really offensive. Couldn’t Lloyds have been more mature and admit their mistake and apologise publicly? They made a massive error and they won’t say sorry.”
In awarding Mr Borg-Neal substantial damages, the tribunal accepted that “it has hurt the claimant a great deal that he has been branded as a racist”. It ordered that Lloyds circulate the judgment to the bank’s British board and “that they be asked to read and digest it”. It warned Lloyds “not to make comments to the press which give a wholly misleading impression”.
>It acknowledged too the “shock, hurt, humiliation and damage” he suffered over the “loss of a job he loved” and recognised the toll that the allegations had taken.
>“The damage this has done to my health is incredible,” said Mr Borg-Neal. He now suffers back pain brought on by the stress and takes two pills a day for the anxiety, including a sleeping pill to get him through the night. The verbal tic – brought on by stress – is evident as he talks about the years trying to hide his dyslexia and how he had “always tried to fight it”.
>He has had more than 50 messages of support from former colleagues. Tears form as he reads out one message from a senior colleague from an ethnic-minority background following the court victory. “Now the lid has been lifted I wanted to say how proud I am to count you as a friend and a colleague. Stand up, stand tall and please reach out if I can help in any way,” the colleague wrote.
Mr Borg-Neal was only able to take the case on after signing up to the Free Speech Union (FSU), a campaign group that – to use common parlance – rails against modern day “wokery”. The FSU offered to underwrite Mr Borg-Neal’s legal costs if he lost the case. As it is, out of his £490,000 award, he will have to pay £150,000 to a legal team at Doyle Clayton law firm that he praises for its brilliance in restoring his reputation.
>Karolien Celie, the FSU’s legal officer, said: “Mr Borg-Neal was treated abysmally by his employer and we are delighted that justice has been served in his case. Mr Borg-Neal’s case is a timely reminder for employers not to be blinded by dogma but to treat each employee fairly in accordance with the law and in a spirit of tolerance, open-mindedness and good faith.”
Is this real?
Man literally drops the N word during anti-racism training….
This is such a funny story, and I refuse to believe anyone in it is taking any of it seriously.
The anti-racism speaker who genuinely had to take a week off work due to distress having heard the n word? Come on now.
The absolute madlad who said the n word during an anti-racism talk, and blamed it on his dyslexia.
The crazy judge who decided to award him £490k for being fired for saying the n word.
It feels like every character in this story, has their tongue firmly in their cheek.
Anyway, credit to Carl. Managed to get paid £490k to say the N word, during an anti racism talk, in 2021. That is just the most improbable set of events.
In fairness having read the entire story I’m siding with him on this one.
12.5 years post tax salary was his reward.
Bet her was laughing all the way to the bank.
I mean, we will never know the context of how it was said. The court found it was said without malice. However it’s a really wild series of events, the question is controversial yet valid, the trainer needed a week to recover? (Really) Lloyds hands were tied as they in no way want to appear as a racist sympathiser, so they have to slam down the hammer. It’s all a bit crazy really.
As someone who isn’t white, this story sums up why racism is such an issue and a problem. Someone simply saying a “racist” word with non racist intent is treated worse than someone who is a proper mental racist who never uses such words but has massive influence on racist politics – the Nigel Farage effect.
I look Arabic and am actually Jewish (not practicing, race only, but wouldn’t have escaped the Holocaust) and I’m _far_ more worried about people who spend their whole lives trying to avoid any use of “inadvertent racism” than someone who casually uses a “slur” for the purpose of humour or as in this case, simple honest ignorance.
Assuming the story is true and all the facts are correct (which I grant they might not be) I’m far more concerned about the course leader and people like them in day to day life than the bloke the story is about. I’m fed up of right-wing-but-don’t-even-realise-it liberals trying to dictate how everyone must live their lives. As a socialist, they are our kryptonite.
The trainer having to take a week off work is one of the more pathetic things I’ve heard in a while.
“The trainer was left “badly distressed” and took almost a week off work. ”
​
​
What an absolute fanny. She clearly got her compo face on. Hope she didn’t get a bean.
You can get paid half a million for saying the Nword yet people think you can get sacked for saying a joke about putting Rohypnol in your wife’s drink without a tribunal upholding that too.
I am not a doctor, so I cannot comment on whether his medical condition contributed to his grossly inappropriate behaviour
However, an employee that behaves like this would be a liability to any organisation and it should be a surprise to no one that Lloyds was itching to get rid of him
>The employment judge said Mr Borg-Neal’s dyslexia was a “strong factor causing how he expressed himself in a session and in his use of the full word rather than finding a means to avoid it”.
As someone with dyslexia, I can tell you unequivocally that is NOT how dyslexia manifests and the guys pulling this out of his ass.
“What should I do if black people say the n word” sounds like a bloke trying to be funny during a training session.
The judge is a mug and has been had.
2 month old accounts with 12k+ karma, posting bait at 2am on a Sunday morning. Whew.
The fact that he doesn’t know the difference between dyslexia and Tourette’s show’s he full of shit and a thick racist twat.
Real reason, he’s expensive and they wanted to fire him anyway. He wasn’t being racist, he made a mistake and a simple verbal warning would/should have sufficed.
More double standards and anti-white racism.
Black people can use the word in thousands of songs/music videos. In everyday conversations, etc., there’s no issue whatsoever. A white person dares use it in a conversation about racism and instantly gets fired.
That’s just one example. There are countless others.
Start calling out these double standards and stand up to anti-white racism. Have courage.
16 comments
>Carl Borg-Neal can’t get out his words. Tears fall down his cheeks and he is overcome by an involuntary verbal tic, as if he is choking or has momentarily forgotten how to speak. He is 59 years old and out of work, having been sacked by his employer, Lloyds Bank, for inadvertently blurting out the N word during an anti-racism training session.
>An employment tribunal ruled that Lloyds had unfairly dismissed Mr Borg-Neal and discriminated against him on account of his dyslexia, which leads him to “spurt things out before he loses his train of thought”. He has been awarded damages of almost £500,000. Combined with Lloyds’ legal costs, and tax, the bank faces a bill close to £1 million.
>The cash is of some comfort to Mr Borg-Neal, a vindication of his campaign to clear his name. What he really wanted, however, was his old job back and he wishes the bank would simply say sorry for sacking him. Without the apology, the allegation that he is racist hangs over his head.
>“It is kind of a double-edged sword. When I set out on this legal claim, I said to my mum: ‘If I have to sell my house, I don’t care because this is about clearing my name. Lloyds were calling me racist and that is certainly something I am not and something I have never been,” said Mr Borg-Neal, who is also a Conservative councillor in his local borough council in Andover, Hants.
>After a career spanning 30 years with Lloyds and its affiliates, Mr Borg-Neal believes that the bank has treated him like a “pariah” – he was told not to contact former colleagues and friends in the aftermath of that fateful training session on July 16 2021. It has taken Mr Borg-Neal more than two years to win his compensation through a courtroom ordeal that, at one stage, risked him facing financial ruin.
>“I feel very discriminated against,” he said. “I often wonder if I wasn’t a white middle-aged male would I have had to go through everything I went through. There is no way of telling. But when I talk to my friends – and as you can imagine a good many are white, middle-aged and male – we all agree that is the worst thing you can be right now. You are bottom of everything.”
>The employment tribunal vindicated Mr Borg-Neal in a 46-page judgment that raises serious questions about how major institutions such as Lloyds Bank tackle “very sensitive issues” that arise during diversity training.
>It was about an hour into the online training session – attended virtually by about 100 Lloyds managers – during a discussion about “intent vs effect” that Mr Borg-Neal asked how to handle a situation should he hear someone from an ethnic minority use a word that would be offensive if used by someone not of the same ethnicity. When the trainer did not appear to understand the question, Mr Borg-Neal said by way of explanation: “The most common example being [the] use of the N word in the black community.”
>“Unfortunately,” pointed out the tribunal, “the claimant used the full word rather than the abbreviation.”
>The bank accepted the comment was made without malice and that the question was valid. The employment judge said Mr Borg-Neal’s dyslexia was a “strong factor causing how he expressed himself in a session and in his use of the full word rather than finding a means to avoid it”.
>The trainer was left “badly distressed” and took almost a week off work. But some colleagues at the training session questioned her reaction. According to one attendant, Mr Borg-Neal was ”very much reprimanded in front of us all and when [he] tried to apologise or explain he was threatened with ‘you will be thrown off the course’”.
Another said: “I was shocked by the manner and tone used by one presenter to a colleague. After saying at the beginning this would be a safe environment and it is acknowledged we may make mistakes, she launched into a vitriolic attack. Whilst I do not condone what the colleague said … I believe he was trying to ask a valid question to aid understanding.”
>Mr Borg-Neal was taken aback by the trainer’s reaction. “She immediately went mad,” said Mr Borg-Neal, “I immediately tried to apologise. I said I didn’t mean to upset anybody. I tried to reword the question but she was just shouting at me. She was basically telling me to be quiet and if I didn’t shut up I would be thrown off the course. I bit the bullet and went quiet.”
>He remembers his feelings at the time, a mixture of “upset and anger” – upset that he had caused distress and angry that the trainer had “dealt with it in such an aggressive way”.
>A complaint reached Lloyds HR team and disciplinary procedures activated, although Mr Borg-Neal was never suspended and – as he points out – he continued to mentor two junior colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds until his final dismissal in December 2021, prompting his lengthy legal battle for justice.
>“I realised later on that once it had got back to HR which was dealing with the bank’s race action plan that I was doomed,” he said.
Mr Borg-Neal, who is convinced that Lloyds Bank had ‘wanted to make an example’ of him
>Mr Borg-Neal is convinced that the bank, which he first joined in 1993, had ‘wanted to make an example’ of him Credit: Paul Grover for the Telegraph
>He is convinced that the bank, which he first joined in 1993, had “wanted to make an example of me”. All the father of two wanted was his old job back. That and an apology. “It was my perfect job,” he said of his £55,000 a year role overseeing part of Lloyds’ payments systems.
>But after he won his case in the summer, Lloyds simply said that it would appeal the decision, issuing a statement that declared: “We have a zero-tolerance policy on any racial discrimination or use of racist language.”
>Mr Borg-Neal was devastated. “They sacked me and called me a racist and they are not withdrawing that even though everything says I am not and have never been. I find that really offensive. Couldn’t Lloyds have been more mature and admit their mistake and apologise publicly? They made a massive error and they won’t say sorry.”
In awarding Mr Borg-Neal substantial damages, the tribunal accepted that “it has hurt the claimant a great deal that he has been branded as a racist”. It ordered that Lloyds circulate the judgment to the bank’s British board and “that they be asked to read and digest it”. It warned Lloyds “not to make comments to the press which give a wholly misleading impression”.
>It acknowledged too the “shock, hurt, humiliation and damage” he suffered over the “loss of a job he loved” and recognised the toll that the allegations had taken.
>“The damage this has done to my health is incredible,” said Mr Borg-Neal. He now suffers back pain brought on by the stress and takes two pills a day for the anxiety, including a sleeping pill to get him through the night. The verbal tic – brought on by stress – is evident as he talks about the years trying to hide his dyslexia and how he had “always tried to fight it”.
>He has had more than 50 messages of support from former colleagues. Tears form as he reads out one message from a senior colleague from an ethnic-minority background following the court victory. “Now the lid has been lifted I wanted to say how proud I am to count you as a friend and a colleague. Stand up, stand tall and please reach out if I can help in any way,” the colleague wrote.
Mr Borg-Neal was only able to take the case on after signing up to the Free Speech Union (FSU), a campaign group that – to use common parlance – rails against modern day “wokery”. The FSU offered to underwrite Mr Borg-Neal’s legal costs if he lost the case. As it is, out of his £490,000 award, he will have to pay £150,000 to a legal team at Doyle Clayton law firm that he praises for its brilliance in restoring his reputation.
>Karolien Celie, the FSU’s legal officer, said: “Mr Borg-Neal was treated abysmally by his employer and we are delighted that justice has been served in his case. Mr Borg-Neal’s case is a timely reminder for employers not to be blinded by dogma but to treat each employee fairly in accordance with the law and in a spirit of tolerance, open-mindedness and good faith.”
Is this real?
Man literally drops the N word during anti-racism training….
This is such a funny story, and I refuse to believe anyone in it is taking any of it seriously.
The anti-racism speaker who genuinely had to take a week off work due to distress having heard the n word? Come on now.
The absolute madlad who said the n word during an anti-racism talk, and blamed it on his dyslexia.
The crazy judge who decided to award him £490k for being fired for saying the n word.
It feels like every character in this story, has their tongue firmly in their cheek.
Anyway, credit to Carl. Managed to get paid £490k to say the N word, during an anti racism talk, in 2021. That is just the most improbable set of events.
In fairness having read the entire story I’m siding with him on this one.
12.5 years post tax salary was his reward.
Bet her was laughing all the way to the bank.
I mean, we will never know the context of how it was said. The court found it was said without malice. However it’s a really wild series of events, the question is controversial yet valid, the trainer needed a week to recover? (Really) Lloyds hands were tied as they in no way want to appear as a racist sympathiser, so they have to slam down the hammer. It’s all a bit crazy really.
As someone who isn’t white, this story sums up why racism is such an issue and a problem. Someone simply saying a “racist” word with non racist intent is treated worse than someone who is a proper mental racist who never uses such words but has massive influence on racist politics – the Nigel Farage effect.
I look Arabic and am actually Jewish (not practicing, race only, but wouldn’t have escaped the Holocaust) and I’m _far_ more worried about people who spend their whole lives trying to avoid any use of “inadvertent racism” than someone who casually uses a “slur” for the purpose of humour or as in this case, simple honest ignorance.
Assuming the story is true and all the facts are correct (which I grant they might not be) I’m far more concerned about the course leader and people like them in day to day life than the bloke the story is about. I’m fed up of right-wing-but-don’t-even-realise-it liberals trying to dictate how everyone must live their lives. As a socialist, they are our kryptonite.
The trainer having to take a week off work is one of the more pathetic things I’ve heard in a while.
“The trainer was left “badly distressed” and took almost a week off work. ”
​
​
What an absolute fanny. She clearly got her compo face on. Hope she didn’t get a bean.
You can get paid half a million for saying the Nword yet people think you can get sacked for saying a joke about putting Rohypnol in your wife’s drink without a tribunal upholding that too.
I am not a doctor, so I cannot comment on whether his medical condition contributed to his grossly inappropriate behaviour
However, an employee that behaves like this would be a liability to any organisation and it should be a surprise to no one that Lloyds was itching to get rid of him
>The employment judge said Mr Borg-Neal’s dyslexia was a “strong factor causing how he expressed himself in a session and in his use of the full word rather than finding a means to avoid it”.
As someone with dyslexia, I can tell you unequivocally that is NOT how dyslexia manifests and the guys pulling this out of his ass.
“What should I do if black people say the n word” sounds like a bloke trying to be funny during a training session.
The judge is a mug and has been had.
2 month old accounts with 12k+ karma, posting bait at 2am on a Sunday morning. Whew.
The fact that he doesn’t know the difference between dyslexia and Tourette’s show’s he full of shit and a thick racist twat.
Real reason, he’s expensive and they wanted to fire him anyway. He wasn’t being racist, he made a mistake and a simple verbal warning would/should have sufficed.
More double standards and anti-white racism.
Black people can use the word in thousands of songs/music videos. In everyday conversations, etc., there’s no issue whatsoever. A white person dares use it in a conversation about racism and instantly gets fired.
That’s just one example. There are countless others.
Start calling out these double standards and stand up to anti-white racism. Have courage.