A female police officer has won a case after accusing her firearms department of sex discrimination and harassment after she was forced to strip down to her underwear during a training course.
Tribunals heard that Detective Inspector Rebecca Kalam was discriminated against during her training and told inappropriate comments.
Among these, she was told ‘just because you have t**s does not mean you cannot do a press up’ during her training as well as being forced to pose for photos while five months pregnant.
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Kalam was also understood to be made the ‘poster girl’ for the firearms unit in the West Midlands Police and was told if she refused, she would not pass the training course.
Kalam was one of only seven women in a unit with 250 men, which led to her being discriminated against, according to the case.
She complained of a ‘toxic and discriminatory’ environment in which she felt uncomfortable.
Other allegations showed that derogatory comments were made towards people they were trying to protect, with Kalam claiming last month that protection officers for Malala Yousafzai was referred to as ‘Tikka Masala’.
The men were also said to make inappropriate sexual comments and draw male genitalia on notice boards.
West Midlands have come forward and admitted discrimination and sexual harassment after several allegations made by Kalam.
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The judgement published yesterday also shows that the force was found liable for the claims of sex discrimination and harassment.
Kalam joined the force in 2012 and was subject to discrimination from the beginning. In the March of 2012, she was required to act as an example in a training exercise where her clothes were cut off and was ‘striped down to her underwear’.
The Birmingham tribunal heard that the fake wound was in her left breast, where officers would have to treat, which left her feeling ‘extremely uncomfortable’.
Later that month, a male trainer pushed her neck down with his foot and said ‘just because you have t**s does not mean you cannot do a press up’ while doing a drill.
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Furthermore, Kalam wasn’t given a hand gun like the male officers and was forced to wear PPE not designed for women, and told she should wear a ‘compression bra’ to fit into it.
In the judgement, Kamal has received £3,000 in compensation 'in respect of pain, suffering and loss of amenity for her claim for physical injury’.
Kalam’s string of claims of racism, misogyny and toxic behaviour claims warns of 'another David Carrick or Wayne Couzens’ she tells Channel 4 News.
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