Council finance chief's 'racy' samba photo of a naked black woman was racial harassment, a tribunal rules, as the sacked black lawyer who complained wins just £4,817

Published 28 October 2026, 17:03

• The tribunal threw out 41 of Rochelle Tapping's 43 harassment complaints against Peterborough City Council.
• Finance chief Cecilie Booth posted a 'racy' samba photo appearing to show a naked black woman to staff WhatsApp.
• Councillors voted 43 to 7 to sack her after she failed probation, which the tribunal ruled was not racist.

A black council lawyer has been awarded just £4,817.67 in compensation after an employment tribunal dismissed 41 of her 43 racial harassment complaints against Peterborough City Council, upholding only two — one involving a question about whether she and another black colleague were "friends," and another involving a "racy" photograph of a black woman sent to a staff WhatsApp group.

Rochelle Tapping, who is black and of Jamaican and Caribbean heritage, was employed as Peterborough City Council's Director of Legal and Governance and statutory Monitoring Officer from November 2022 until August 2023, when elected councillors voted 43 to 7 to dismiss her after she failed her probation period.

She was the first black person appointed to the Monitoring Officer role at the council and possibly the first black permanent member of its Corporate Leadership Team.

During her recruitment, HR chief Mandy Pullen described her as "a breath of fresh air" and "exactly what Peterborough needed."

The total award, determined by the tribunal, comprised £3,750 for injury to feelings and £1,067.67 in interest.

The first complaint the tribunal upheld concerned Chief Executive Matthew Gladstone.

In February 2023, when Tapping introduced him to Adsuwa Omoregie — a newly arrived black interim colleague — Gladstone asked whether the two women were "friends."

Omoregie later told investigators she found it "a bit strange as to why he would think we would be friends," and reflected that it may have been "because he saw 2 black sitting together that he assumed that we were friends."

The tribunal found it was reasonable for Tapping to be offended by the implicit suggestion that two senior black women must know one another, even though Gladstone's question was "effectively a slip of the tongue" with no intention to cause offence.

The tribunal noted that Gladstone had not corrected himself at the time, leaving both women with the impression that he was assuming two senior black professionals must be acquainted.

The second upheld complaint concerned Chief Finance Officer Cecilie Booth.

On 11 April 2023, while on holiday in Brazil, Booth sent a photograph to the Corporate Leadership Team WhatsApp group.

The image appeared to show a naked black woman from behind — her long hair concealing that she was in carnival costume — with her buttocks, legs and thighs on show.

Accompanying the photograph, Booth wrote: "The Brazilian samba is a bit racy…"

Tapping was the only black member of the group; all other members were white.

The tribunal determined that the photograph's emphasis on the black performer's exposed buttocks, together with Tapping being the only black person to receive it, meant the image could reasonably be considered connected to race, and that Tapping's sense of being subjected to a degrading environment was reasonable.

The tribunal found the image "offended her sense of what it is and what it takes to be a successful professional black woman."

It concluded that Booth "did not set out to offend" and intended it as a light-hearted holiday message, but that this did not prevent the image from constituting an act of harassment.

The tribunal was also critical of Booth's conduct more broadly.

Although it did not find her aggressive behaviour on a Teams call on 9 March 2023 was race-related, it noted she "still has not" apologised to Tapping more than two years later, and that her "entrenched attitude reflects poorly upon her."

When interviewed by investigators, Booth said: "I had nothing to apologise about as they were in the wrong."

Colleague Elaine Redding told investigators that Booth's behaviour changed when financial matters were challenged: "When it came to the money the command and control aspect of that came into play and the behaviours changed."

Tapping's dismissal came after councillors voted 43 to 7 at an extraordinary full council meeting on 31 August 2023, following a recommendation by Gladstone that was endorsed by an Independent Panel of three Independent Persons.

The tribunal ruled the dismissal was not racially motivated.

It found Gladstone had genuinely held performance concerns — including that Tapping had failed to drive a review of Legal Services and to manage a dysfunctional team — that were documented in contemporaneous records and corroborated by multiple witnesses.

A key turning point was the probation review meeting of 10 May 2023.

The tribunal found Tapping was "defensive from the outset," refusing to engage substantively with Gladstone's questions about her performance.

When Gladstone asked her to discuss her work, she responded: "It will just be me reading from the note I shared."

When he pressed her further — "Bring it to life. What are you most proud of?" — she replied: "To be honest I am thrown by this process and your approach."

The tribunal found she "must accept some responsibility" for the breakdown in the meeting, and that her conduct was "poor" and "rude and condescending."

On 14 June 2023, Gladstone wrote to Tapping that "your behaviours and leadership style are poor and you are failing to undertake the role to the expected standard" and that the "golden triangle… is ineffective and I have lost trust and confidence in you."

The Independent Panel, which met on 14 August 2023, concluded that Gladstone's recommendation to terminate Tapping's employment was "reasonable and valid."

It also criticised aspects of the process, noting the one-to-one mechanism was "somewhat lacking in formality and strategic objectives" and that "PCC could have helped by providing additional guidance and mentoring for RT at an earlier stage."

The tribunal rejected Tapping's claim that the panel had rubber-stamped Gladstone's preferred outcome, noting it had excluded HR from its deliberations and met on multiple further occasions before issuing its report.

The tribunal also rejected Tapping's central claim that her "cards were marked" from the outset and that Gladstone orchestrated a hostile environment against her.

It found that six days after Tapping disclosed her race discrimination claim against former employer Birmingham City Council, Gladstone was "impatient" for her to join Peterborough.

His contemporaneous messages — including "Huge welcome to the authority – great you have started" and "Keep up the good work – really welcomed" sent in November and December 2022 — were found to be "genuinely expressed."

The tribunal concluded Tapping "genuinely believes she was discriminated against" but that her past beliefs had "sub-consciously been revised in certain respects to make them more consistent with her present beliefs."

Among the 39 other complaints dismissed, the tribunal found that Gladstone did not use the word "lynched" at a drinks event — finding instead he said "latch onto" — and that his suggestion of solicitor Mark Greenburgh as a mentor was not an attempt to intimidate Tapping, as Gladstone was unaware that Greenburgh had acted for Birmingham in her discrimination case.

The tribunal also found that Tapping had misunderstood her role at the May 2023 local elections due to limited electoral experience, rather than having been demoted.

On the question of compensation, the tribunal placed Gladstone's "friends" question at or near the bottom of the lower Vento band — worth £990 at the relevant time — given the "fleeting hurt and upset" it caused, noting Tapping did not even mention it in her letter of complaint to Gladstone on 9 May 2023.

The WhatsApp photograph was assessed as warranting between £2,000 and £3,000 on its own.

The tribunal awarded £3,750 in total for both acts.

The tribunal dismissed the claims for psychiatric injury, concluding that neither act appeared in Tapping's medical or occupational health records and that her anxiety and depression arose principally from her dismissal and her unfounded belief that she had been the target of an ongoing pattern of discrimination.

Although the tribunal did not uphold Tapping's complaint about being excluded from a Local Government Chronicle awards event in June 2023 — at which all attendees were white — it encouraged the council to "reflect critically as to what inclusivity means at Peterborough," describing the event as "a missed opportunity for the City Council to present itself at a gathering of its peers… in a more representative way."