Female charity worker whose male bosses called her a ‘stupid b***h’ and told to ‘obey’ after she refused to ‘hug and kiss’ her manager wins £70,000 payout after suing care company

• Nura Aabe worked at Happy Care in Bristol with HR manager Axmed Carab
• She sued the company, Mr Carab and another male director, Ahmed Ibrahim 
• The two men told her to ‘obey’ after she refused to ‘hug and kiss’ Mr Carab

A female charity worker whose male bosses called her a ‘stupid b****’ and told her to ‘obey’ after she refused to ‘hug and kiss’ her manager has won £70,000 after suing the care company.  

Nura Aabe was working as the only female director of Bristol-based Happy Care when Axmed Carab phoned to ask if she ‘was in her bedroom’, an employment tribunal heard.

When she went to hang up, he asked why she ‘was running away from him’, the hearing was told.

Another male director, Ahmed Ibrahim, then urged Mrs Aabe to ‘spend more private time’ with Mr Carab, telling her to ‘hug and kiss’ him before saying she ‘should learn to obey’, the panel heard.

When the directors – who were also Muslims of Somali background – became ‘aggressive’, Mrs Aabe said she was going to the police and later reported the company to the local authority.

Nura Aabe (pictured) was working as the only female director of Bristol-based Happy Care when Axmed Carab phoned to ask if she ‘was in her bedroom’, an employment tribunal heard

Mrs Aabe, who holds a British Empire Medal for services to people with autism, has sued the Happy Care company and the two male directors and won £73,474.70

The tribunal ruled the two bosses decided to take ‘revenge’ in an ‘ill thought out, cunning plan’ to fire her.

Mrs Aabe, who holds a British Empire Medal for services to people with autism, has successfully sued the Happy Care company, Mr Carab and Mr Ibrahim and won £73,474.70.

The tribunal heard Mrs Aabe began working for Happy Care, which provides home service care to people with disabilities, in March 2019.

They were told the harassment started on June 4, 2020, when Mr Carab called Mrs Aabe and asked if she ‘was in her bedroom’.

When she tried to hang up, he asked why she ‘was running away from him’ and said they ‘needed to meet alone’, she told the tribunal. 

The following night he tried to ring her at 21:30, but she did not pick up and texted him to say she would call him tomorrow.

The tribunal heard that on June 6, Mr Carab said he needed to speak to her during a break in a meeting.

He ‘closed the door behind them and stood very close to her’, she told the hearing.

The tribunal heard that Finance Manager Ahmed Ibrahim (pictured) tried to persuade Mrs Aabe to ‘spend more private time’ with Mr Carab

According to Mrs Aabe, he said he had stayed up until 3am waiting for her to call, and asked her why she had not called and why they could not go out together.

Mrs Aabe told him she wouldn’t be going out alone with him, before he became ‘upset’ and ‘stormed out’.

She said that at the reconvened meeting, he ‘undermined her, dismissing her suggestions and told the other directors not to listen to her’.

The tribunal heard that later that month, Finance Manager Ahmed Ibrahim tried to persuade her to ‘spend more private time’ with Mr Carab.

This conversation lasted for three hours, she said.  

‘I was told to go to Mr Carab and hug and kiss him.’ 

Mrs Aabe said the next day Mr Ibrahim called her ‘stupid’ and a ‘b****’, telling her she ‘should learn to obey’ – all of which he denied.

At another meeting on June 23, the managers were discussing the cancellation of a care package for a disabled lesbian woman.

They claimed Mrs Aabe had decided to cancel it because she was ‘uncomfortable with the client’s sexual orientation’ and that the couple had been ‘having sex whilst she was present at the property’. 

She denied the allegations, and on July 10 reported the firm to Bristol City Council.

Five days later, Mr Carab said he wrote to tell her she was suspended due to homophobia.

Mrs Aabe denied receiving this letter, and after she failed to attend a disciplinary meeting on August 3, they fired her for misconduct.

She then took the company to the tribunal – held in Bristol – and won claims including unfair dismissal, sex and religious discrimination and sexual harassment.

Employment Judge Colm O’Rourke accused the two men of ‘egregiously abhorrent’ behaviour, concluding Mrs Aabe was a director ‘in name only, and they certainly expected her to ‘obey’ them’.

He said: ‘Did [Mr Carab] treat [Mrs Aabe] less favourably as a result of her rejecting his advances?

‘We find that he did as, until at least the point that [Mrs Aabe] began to make disclosures to third parties, there was no other obvious motivation for his actions.

‘Perhaps combined with general misogyny and resentment of [Mrs Aabe’s] status, her obvious intelligence and capability, despite her sex.

‘We are clear that if she had acquiesced to his advances, it seems inherently unlikely that the following less favourable treatment would have occurred.

‘[Mr Carab] must have realised that his approaches to [Mrs Aabe] would not be reciprocated, and his focus turned more to ‘revenge’ for her disclosures and the risk they posed to his and [Mr Ibrahim’s] control of [Happy Care].

‘[Mr Carab and Mr Ibrahim] acted entirely in concert against [Mrs Aabe], and it is therefore entirely plausible that [Mr Ibrahim] would have sought to pressurise [Mrs Aabe] to acquiesce to his friend’s demands.

‘The reason [Mr Carab and Mr Ibrahim] advanced her alleged homophobia…was an entirely spurious, concocted and malicious accusation against her.’

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