Council sexter Colin Reguero-Puente loses unfair dismissal claim

Fair Work Commission upholds sacking of council employee who claimed younger female staff welcomed his sexually-explicit texts.

Colin Reguero-Puente was sacked from his senior building surveying position with the City Of Rockingham. Picture: Thinkstock.

Young women should not have to tell male superiors they do not want to be sent salacious text messages, the Fair Work Commission says, upholding the sacking of a senior council employee who claimed younger female co-workers welcomed his sexually-explicit texts.

Colin Reguero-Puente was sacked from his senior building surveying position with the City Of Rockingham in Western Australia after an investigation upheld allegations of misconduct relating to his interaction with four female co-workers. He claimed he had been unfairly dismissed because the texts were welcome and reciprocated.

Commission deputy president Melanie Binet said evidence tendered by Mr Reguero-Puente alone revealed a pattern of him “sending overfamiliar, sexually loaded and sexually explicit texts and images to young female co-workers, often late at night and in the early hours of the morning”.

Ms Binet said his central defence was “not that he did not do what he is alleged to have done, but rather that the women should have told him to stop”.

Some of the women did but “it made no difference,’’ she said.

“Others clearly tried to curtail conversations that Mr Reguero-Puente was trying to lead in an inappropriate direction. Others admittedly participated. All say that to the extent that they did respond, they felt they had little choice given (his) seniority and his behaviour in the workplace.”

The commission heard he told one female colleague “you look hot”, “I’d like to see you in those heels only”, “can you leave your underwear, a bra or something, in my car next time?’’, “I’ll let you go up the stairs first so I can watch your arse”, said she was “kinky”, and asked if she liked pubic hair on women.

Ms Binet said his position seemed to be that he was “entitled to say and do what he pleases unless his female colleagues tell him emphatically in writing to stop”.

“With all due respect to Mr Reguero-Puente, who is 45 years old and in a long-term relationship of more than 12 years, it is difficult to comprehend that Mr Reguero-Puente could have reasonably believed that all of these much younger women, seriously welcomed his advances,’’ she said.

“In this day and age young women should not have to tell their older superiors that they do not want to be sent salacious texts during or after working hours, nor have comments of a sexual nature made about them, or be directed toward them in their workplace.”