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Disabled student 'forced to work in Abercrombie & Fitch stockroom because of prosthetic arm'

Updated: 03:02 EDT, 25 June 2009 Riam Dean, 22, arrives at the employment tribunal in London for her case against Abercrombie & Fitch

A disabled shopgirl yesterday accused a fashion chain of destroying her confidence by 'bullying' her out of her job.

Riam Dean, 22, who was born without a left forearm, claims she was hidden in a stockroom at Abercrombie & Fitch's London store so customers could not see her prosthetic limb.

The law student broke down in tears as she told an employment tribunal she was 'taunted' because she did not fit the shop's 'look policy'.

She also accused bosses of practising a policy of 'eugenics'.

The hearing was told Miss Dean worked briefly at the U.S. chain's store in Savile Row last summer

When on the first day she was fitted for her uniform - a polo-style shirt - she asked to wear a longsleeve vest underneath to cover the join between her upper arm and her prosthetic limb.

Bosses insisted she would wear a cardigan over the top instead, she claimed.

But other managers on the shop's visual team, who check everything is in place, repeatedly told her she could not wear the cardigan on the shop floor as it was against the look policy, the hearing was told.

But they did not want to see her false arm either, she claims.

A week into the job last July Miss Dean said a Spanish manager named Maria ordered her to the stockroom - then launched into a tirade of abuse when she asked why.

She told the panel: 'Her attitude was combative and aggressive. I was totally taken aback.

'She clearly realised she was in a difficult position because she had ordered me off the shop floor and now had to justify it without citing my disability as a reason.

'She used the look policy as an excuse to hide me away in the stockroom.'

Miss Dean told the tribunal she was 'outraged' when Maria compared covering her arm to wearing heavy make-up, which is also against the look policy saying: 'The cardigan was not my idea in the first place. Abercrombie & Fitch in central London

'When I asked for an explanation, her only answer was, "Take it off and I'll put you back on the shop floor".

'She offered this as a challenge as it was clear never for a moment did she want me to do it.'

The student began to weep as she added: 'Her words pierced right through the armour of 20 years of building up personal confidence about me as a person and that I am much more than a girl with only one arm.'

Later she claims bosses suggested she should stay in the storeroom and not be seen in the shop until the more covering winter uniforms arrived some months later.

She said she was too upset to return to work and quit adding: 'I had been bullied out of my job.

'I was always prepared for children to be curious about my disability but to be faced with adult bullying, no one could have prepared me for such debasement.

'Like the colour of my skin I am born with a character trait I am unable to change. Thus to be singled out for a minor aesthetic flaw made me question my worth as a human being.

'Abercrombie taught me that beauty lies in perfection. But I would tell them that beauty lies in diversity, for I would rather live with my imperfection than to exude such ugliness as in their blatant display of eugenics in policies and practices.'

Miss Dean, of Greenford, West London, is seeking compensation for alleged discrimination and constructive dismissal.

Abercrombie & Fitch denies discriminating on the grounds of disability.

The hearing in Central London continues.


Disabled student 'forced to work in Abercrombie and Fitch stockroom because of prosthetic arm'



