A Channel 5 presenter has won a four-figure pay-out after she was sacked for making an obscene gesture live on air when producers called her a WHORE through her earpiece.
Stunning Charlie Vernon, 28, was presenting a jewellery show on shopping channel Gems TV when male colleagues made the lewd remarks.
A tribunal heard she was called a “f***ing big whore” and “big bitch” while hosting the Jewellery Maker Show on the Sky TV channel in May last year.
The former CBBC and GMTV presenter was then caught on camera sticking her middle finger up sparking a complaint from a viewer whose 12-year-old daughter saw the rude gesture.
Miss Vernon decided to sue TV bosses after she was sacked from the Genuine Gemstone Company – where she had worked for two years – for gross misconduct.
On Wednesday she lost a claim for unfair dismissal and victimisation but was awarded £3,250 compensation for sexual harassment at a Birmingham employment tribunal.
Miss Vernon – who now presents on Channel 5’s Live With Gabby – told the hearing she had tried to laugh off the distraction at first.
But when the abuse continued she became “shocked and extremely offended” by the crude language used by the production staff.
Miss Vernon, from Bath, Somerset, told the tribunal: “I was shocked and extremely offended to be called a f****** big whore and a bitch on my earpiece.
“There’s always the odd distraction joke among the camera crews during transmission, but it’s usually innocent and friendly.
“I’ve never been insulted before by such crude language.
“This was taken to a different level and I did my best to carry on with the show despite what was going on.”
The tribunal was shown 10-minute video footage of the incident, in which Miss Vernon is seen laughing nervously before becoming angry and making the gesture.
She added she had not realised her response had been seen by viewers, who were unaware of the earpiece abuse.
Paul Roberts, representing the company, said Miss Vernon’s gesture could have brought the firm’s reputation into disrepute.
He also claimed the presenter had been threatened with losing her job two weeks before the finger incident.
After a two day hearing tribunal judge Victoria Dean said the tribunal agreed that she had been sexually harassed.
She said calling a work colleague a ‘big whore’ and a ‘bitch’ was highly unprofessional and completely unacceptable.
However, she rejected her claim for unfair dismissal after declaring the TV firm had acted ‘within the range of reasonable responses’ by sacking her for misconduct.
The legal claim for victimisation was also rejected by the judge who described the situation as a “one-off incident.”
Miss Vernon got her break in TV in 2009 after landing a spot on New Look TV.
She then went on to host a new breakfast show at 97.5FM Somer Vally Radio in Bath also presenting her own weekly drive time show called ‘The Entertainment Fix’.
In 2010 she became a presenter at The Jewellery Channel for Sky TV before moving on to Gems TV the following year.
