'Feared for safety' | HR at Google-owned firm 'outright ignored' sexual assault complaints

HR bosses at a Google-owned tech firm have been accused of ‘mishandling’, ‘minimising’ and ‘outright ignoring’ a former employee’s allegations that she was sexually assaulted by a co-worker, the Financial Times has reported.

The former employee at DeepMind, an AI technology company based in London, raised concerns over how grievances are dealt with, after complaining that a colleague had sexually assaulted her twice, according to the publication.

In an open letter posted online, the woman, who remained anonymous but is referred to as “Julia” by the FT, explained that although she had “concrete evidence and reported [her] ongoing harassment to DeepMind HR - they took almost a year to resolve my case.”

She added: “Despite years of pledges to 'do better', my case convinced me that Alphabet’s [Google’s parent company] HR (aka People & Culture) practices remain grossly inadequate.”