UK man sues female colleague who repeatedly slapped his butt

LONDON - A male shop assistant in Britain has launched a sex discrimination case against a female colleague of his after she repeatedly slapped his bottom.

Konstantinos Kalomoiris, 40, who worked at the John Lewis store on Oxford Street, claims Bianca Revrenna, 68, tapped his behind in the locker room and on the shop floor.

He said each time she slapped him she paused for a few seconds “like she was savouring it”, and when he told her to stop it, she replied: “I do that to all the boys.”

“Bianca slapped my bum again. I repeated to her not to do that. I said, ‘I’ve told you before’. She said she always did that to the boys, and that she didn’t mean anything by it,” the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

Kalomoiris, of New Cross, South-East London, said he made a formal complaint, but his manager told him he “should be delighted” that a woman liked him so much.

“My manager said I should be delighted that a colleague liked me enough to slap my bum. He said if a woman slapped his bottom, he would not be offended at all. I was told I was too sensitive,” he told the tribunal.

He claims he was so offended by the three separate slapping incidents that he eventually quit his job in disgust.

Revrenna insists she just “touched his back in a caring way, like a mother or grandmother” in an attempt to reassure him, and denied she slapped his bottom.

Lawyers for the company, which opened its first shop in 1864, said Revrenna had been with the chain for 40 years, was one of the oldest employees and had enjoyed an “unblemished career”.

The trial is continuing. (ANI)