Offensive cake leads woman in tribunal

A former employee of NZCU who baked an offensive cake believes her former employers tried to ruin her career.

A woman who baked a cake and iced it with foul language directed toward her old bosses says they are using the frosty dessert to end her career.

The Human Rights Tribunal is sitting in Napier this week to hear the case of former NZ Credit Union Baywide (NZCU) employee Karen Hammond.

Miss Hammond, who is now listed as a worker at AMP Solutions in Napier, baked a cake for a former workmate at NZCU, shortly after she had left the company in March 2012. She said the cake was an attempt to bring a smile to her friend, who was being "bullied" in the workplace.

"I made a cake and iced it with my feelings," Miss Hammond said in her opening submissions yesterday.

The fruit and chocolate chunk cake was inscribed with pink icing and read: "Credit Union Baywide f*** you c***s."

"Once I made the cake I took a photo of it and posted it on my Facebook page for [my friends] to view and share - I then made my way to the dinner."

The dinner party was for her maligned workmate and comprised 10 people, who all found found the cake to be a "laugh", she said.

What followed, Miss Hammond claims, was "malicious intent with complete disregard [for] the law" from NZCU executive staff after they learned of the cake's existence.

Miss Hammond, who began working at NZCU on July 13, 2011, claims the company's human-resource manager, Louise Alexandra, forced a 21-year-old employee to log on to her Facebook profile and retrieve the image of the cake.

She said her former colleague did so "against her will - out of fear her employment was at risk".

Once her former CEO had a copy of the photo, he broadcast an email with the image attached to all NZCU staff and stated Miss Hammond had baked an "offensive and disgusting" cake, she said.

She added that the photo was intended for her Facebook friends only, believing she was safe in the knowledge that her security settings were closed and she had "intimate knowledge" of her online friends.

"It was a gift from one friend to another in the presence of our friends only."

As of yesterday Miss Hammond had 165 Facebook friends.

She said the NZCU executives distributed the image to recruitment agencies and contacted Miss Hammond's new employer, a business partner, and requested Miss Hammond be fired.

"I did not fit the Baywide culture, which is something I still proudly own," she said.

"If I placed this photo in an album in my lounge, did they not break my door down to get it?"

She said tearfully during her submissions that she "cannot measure or quantify without emotion [the] intent to hurt me".

"Every action had an objective.

"To ensure I would never work in the financial industry again - to go from a manager to a PA is humiliating and financially crippling.

"I will show you how I must live with the malicious and slanderous actions against me and my family."

The case before tribunal chairman Roger Haines QC and tribunal members Wendy Gilchrist and Brian Neeson continues today.