Lawyer sexually harassed female colleague 54 years his junior

---

Tribunal: Significant age and power difference

A 29-year-old woman was sexually harassed by a lawyer 54 years her senior when he invited her for a meeting in his hotel room, an employment tribunal has ruled.

Employment Judge Nicolle in London awarded Anita Obiagwu £20,000 for injury to feelings over the incident, which occurred after she and 83-year-old Andrew Greystoke had attended a dinner with clients during a work trip to Nice.

There was a “significant” age and power difference between the pair, he noted.

Mr Greystoke qualified as a barrister and went into corporate finance, working at NM Rothschild. Also qualified as a solicitor, he set up now-defunct Atlantic Law in 1999 and is currently a director of family office Pantheon International Advisors.

Ms Obiagwu joined Pantheon in June 2023 as a corporate projects executive, described as “a legal role, with some financial input”. She was dismissed in November 2023.

She accompanied Mr Greystoke on the trip to Nice that October. The judge noted that “alcohol was consumed at that [client] dinner and in all probability alcohol had been consumed earlier in the day”.

Ms Obiagwu and Mr Greystoke returned to their hotel mid-evening. The lawyer said that, as there was no available meeting space in the hotel for a “debrief”, he suggested they go to his room.

Although Mr Greystoke originally denied it, he admitted then opening a bottle of champagne but Ms Obiagwu said she did not drink any.

She told the tribunal: “Whilst I was typing he began rubbing my arm and back and said he thinks that I am beautiful and said if anyone were to ask to him if he would fuck me he would.

“I did not move out of shock and fear. He continued to inappropriately caress my back and arm and said that he knew when I came in for my interview that he found me beautiful.

“He then proceeded to ask me what I thought about his advances which alluded to sexual interactions. I was still frozen in shock and fear and had not looked up from my laptop.”

Mr Greystoke denied that anything improper took place but, on the balance of probabilities, the tribunal preferred Ms Obiagwu’s account.

“I consider that there are clear grounds to infer that an act of discrimination/harassment took place and therefore the burden of proof shifts to the respondents [Mr Greystoke and Pantheon]. Having considered the parties’ respective versions of events I find that the respondents have not rebutted the inference of discriminatory conduct.”

Key evidence in support of Ms Obiagwu came from Mr Greystoke’s then PA, Buse Suglam, whom she messaged and spoke to after the incident.

It was put to Ms Suglam that her evidence was tainted by her resentment to Pantheon, because she was unable to continue her role after starting the Bar professional training course. She is now a paralegal at the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge rejected the suggestion.

“It would have serious professional ramifications if she committed perjury in the evidence she gave to the tribunal,” he noted.

All of Mr Greystoke’s witnesses said such an invitation on a business trip was “perfectly normal”, but Judge Nicolle said: “However, I do not accept that in 2025 it is advisable employment practice for a senior manager to invite a junior female employee to their hotel room whether to discuss business or otherwise.”

The judge said Mr Greystoke had “a general proclivity to a very informal and arguably outdated modus operandi in his interpersonal relationships within and around the workplace”.

These included drinking during the working day and allowing another employee to have access to his phone. He accepted Ms Suglam’s evidence that “she observed communications between him and sex workers” on his phone.

The age difference made it “very improbable that there can have been any reasonable grounds for a mistaken belief by Mr Greystoke that any overtures he may have made to her were likely to have been reciprocated and welcome”.

Judge Nicolle drew no inferences from Ms Obiagwu’s failure to complain about what happened. “I accept that someone in her situation may well put on a brave face and carry on as if nothing had happened.

“That is typical of many victims of sexual harassment, and more generally sexual offences and domestic violence, and it does not follow that not raising a contemporaneous complaint, and demonstrating overt distress, means that no inappropriate conduct took place.”

He concluded Ms Obiagwu was subjected to sexual harassment and awarded her £20,000, with the reasons including “the very significant age and power differential between the claimant and Mr Greystoke”.

He accepted that she suffered significant long-lasting emotional trauma as a result of the incident.

But the judge held that her employment was terminated for unconnected reasons.