Farmers wife asked for a mega service

20 August 1998

Farmer’s wife ‘asked for a mega service’

A FARMERS wife grabbed a workers genitals and made salty remarks as he serviced a tractor, an industrial tribunal heard yesterday.

Farmworker Ivan Greenaway, 38, told the hearing in Southampton that Catherine Vint said: “I cant resist it” as she grabbed him between the legs. But he replied: “Theyll be no capers like that.”

Mr Greenaway resigned after being told his wages were being cut. He is suing Mrs Vint and her husband for unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination.

Mr Greenaway worked at the couples 230-acre Longdown Dairy Farm, at Ashurst, Hampshire. He claimed his problems began in January this year when he went into the farm office.

“I leant across the desk to get a paper and pen as I did so I felt this hand on my back. It then went right between my legs and I was squeezed in the private area.”

He asked her what she thought she was doing but she told him “she could not resist it”.

A few weeks later she approached him while he was working on a tractor. Told he was servicing a tractor, she replied: “I could do with a mega service myself”. He told her to back off otherwise he would tell her husband.

Mr Greenaway was told later that his wages were being cut and he could “take it or go”. He decided to hand in his notice.

• The Daily Telegraph 20/08/98 page 3