Carer forced to leave job because of homophobic abuse claims
A carer at an old people’s home said yesterday that he was forced to leave his job because he was gay.
Kevin Reid, 43, told an employment tribunal that he was accused of performing an indecent act in front of patients, touching patients inappropriately and not wearing gloves while bathing patients.
He was suspended over the allegations, then cleared by the home bosses and offered his job back.
But Mr Reid quit, and sued his employers at the Long-Stone Care Home in Edinburgh for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination.
Mr Reid told The Daily Record: “Because I did not have a wife or kids I was a lesser creature in their eyes.
“There was a general disposition that they were not keen on gay or black people.”
Mr Reid said that he did not want to work with his accusers, who he felt had made his life a misery by continually making an issue of his sexuality.
Mr Reid also claimed that he was deliberately picked on to clean up patients who had soiled themselves in the bath.
He dismissed the allegations as “an attempt to assassinate my character from people who didn’t like me.”
The tribunal heard that separate complaints were made by different members of staff, all on the same day.
