As every southerner knows, people from the north of England will not eat chips without gravy, insist on talking to every stranger they meet and often sport a flat cap when walking the whippet. But do they also swear more?
In an employment tribunal judgment that raises further questions about regional stereotypes, a judge has suggested that swearing in the workplace is particularly common in the north.
Judge Shergill made the comment in a ruling that supported a driver who had been sacked for verbally abusing a fellow worker.
The judge was adjudicating a claim for unfair dismissal made by a man who described a female colleague as a “fucking mong” during an office discussion about doughnuts and weight loss. “Mong” is a highly offensive term for a person with Down’s syndrome.
Shergill said he was satisfied that “swearing should not be acceptable in a workplace” but added that it was common everyday experience particularly in the north.
He was giving his judgment in the case of Robert Ogden against his employer, the wholesale company Booker.
Ogden worked as a driver/trainer at Booker’s site in Royton, Greater Manchester. He was employed by the company from 2016 until his dismissal in 2023.
The ruling says there was a discussion in the office about doughnuts, weight loss and attending a weight loss club. The victim claimed Ogden aggressively said derogatory words to her, as in “the terms ‘fucking’ and ‘mong’ either together or in the same sentence”.
She felt “humiliated and anxious” and took time off work, the ruling said. She rang one manager in tears saying she was “sick of it” and “I have had enough”.
Ogden accepted that he said to the complainant: “You can’t do that, are you a fucking mong? No wonder it takes you 19 weeks to lose a stone, it hasn’t taken me 19 weeks.” He said he did so because he had been dieting as well.
Ogden denied that using the word “mong” was a reference to people with Down’s syndrome, claiming it was “a common northern term referring to stupid”.
In his ruling the judge accepted the word was used by Ogden as a “vague term of abuse” rather than one against a protected characteristic. He said it was offensive but that the word “is not on a par with use of such offensive terms as the racist words N-word and P-word or the homophobic terminology P-word or F-word etc. These are offensive par excellence, not commonplace in society generally since the early 2000s.”
Shergill wrote: “I am satisfied that swearing should not be acceptable in a workplace, although common everyday experience, particularly in the north is that the F-word is used quite often spoken in the public sphere.”
Ogden said at the Manchester hearing that the incident was “an isolated one, it was an outburst, a one-off compared to an otherwise exemplary record”.
He said he had been singled out and that there were cultural issues in the team including with the management. Ogden described the workplace culture as “lawless” and “toxic”.
The judge ruled that Ogden had shown on balance that he had been unfairly dismissed, describing it as “harsh”. He said the evidence pointed “to significant amount of ‘banter’ in the office”, adding: “I am satisfied there was a ‘toxic culture’ in the office, it was ‘lawless’ with no real enforcement of expected workplace norms by managers. Indeed, managers were part of the problem by most accounts.”
Ogden’s compensation will be decided at a later date.