Discrimination | Black hospitality worker wins tribunal after manager pulls off wig

A black hospitality worker has won a racial harassment tribunal case, and over £16,000, after her manager demanded she remove her wig before grabbing and pulling it off.

Angelica Vial, an 18-year-old waitress at the Mazaj Arabic Charcoal Grill in Dundee, was working at the restaurant alongside her university studies when the restaurant founder Sadeq Alsafar, began to harass her about her wig used to protect her braided head from the cold.

The tribunal heard that colleagues at the restaurant would often “gossip” about Vial’s real hair at work, and that there was an “intense curiosity” about what was underneath her wig.

Reportedly, Alsafar’s wife and Vial’s manager, Ruby Mubariq, had “gossiped” about her hair and “whether or not it’s real” in Arabic.