An employment tribunal ruled that Quentin Hawkins was not discriminated on the grounds of gender by not being interviewed for a part-time sales assistant role at Hallmark Cards, Newgate Street.

He claimed that when he went in the shop on January 7 this year after seeing an advert for the post on a window, he was told by sales assistant Mary Grimes that it was looking for someone of school age, which she denied when called as a witness, saying she told every applicant she saw about the details of the job only.

Mrs Grimes took down Mr Hawkins' name and telephone number and the fact he had some retail experience, but he did not receive a call and returned to the shop on February 1, where he found out that a mature adult woman had been employed.
When asked by the tribunal what his thoughts were at the time, he said: "I felt I would have a solid claim for age discrimination if a young person got the job, but it wasn't the case here.

"But within minutes, it occurred to me that I had never seen a man working in that shop."

Janice Miller, who runs the shop as a sole trader, said she had employed a man when it opened in Morpeth in December 2006 and she did not favour any gender when selecting someone for the part-time role in mid-January.

She said: "I had major problems with staff illness at both my shops (the other is in Newcastle) and I desperately needed someone as soon as possible.

"So I took the list of applicants, phoned the first five on it and conducted semi-interviews with them and chose someone from there.

"Had Mr Hawkins been in that first five, I would have phoned him."

No documentary evidence that a man had worked at the shop or of the list of applicants was provided and Mr Hawkins said he probably would have withdrawn his case if he had seen them.

But announcing the ruling, Employment Chairman Barry Speker said: "The tribunal does not find that anyone was discriminated against by this method of recruitment."

He also said the tribunal believed that Mrs Miller had employed a man at the shop, however the lack of documentary evidence at the hearing meant an application for costs against Mr Hawkins, on the grounds that he knew he wasn't going to be successful with his case, was rejected.

After the hearing Mr Hawkins said: "I accept the verdict of the tribunal, and I hope that the respondent's business does well in the future."