Offensive-cake hearing continues

The Human Rights Tribunal continues to debate the offensive cake employment dispute with NZCU Baywide.

A Hawke's Bay human resource manager says a former employee lost control over an image of an offensive cake the moment "it was placed on Facebook".

NZ Credit Union Baywide (NZCU) human resource manger Louise Alexandra said former employee Karen Hammond was "in breach of her employment duties" when she baked a cake and iced it with foul language.

The Human Rights Tribunal is sitting in Napier this week to hear the case of Miss Hammond, who argues her privacy was breached when NZCU took a screenshot of the offending cake from her Facebook page.

She baked the cake, with "Credit Union Baywide f*** you c****" in pink icing, and uploaded an image of it to Facebook five days after leaving the company in March 2012. Ms Alexandra, who gave evidence for NZCU yesterday, said she never threatened an employee to provide company executives with a copy of the photo.

On Tuesday, former company worker Hayley Edmondson alleged Ms Alexandra told her to "keep your voice down" and was "bullied" into revealing the abusive cake.

"I did not threaten Hayley, I did not tell her to keep her voice down. I simply asked her to do the right thing," Ms Alexandra said. She added Miss Hammond breached her employment duties.

"Control of the information was lost when it was placed on Facebook," she said.

Earlier, a NZCU employee recalled checking her Facebook account in the days following the baking of the cake.

She was "upset, shocked and very disappointed" with Miss Hammond, whom she had known for 20 years.

"It wasn't funny, it was simply hurtful."

Miss Hammond cross-examined her old friend and said: "Would you agree you have an understanding of my sense of humour?"

The employee replied "yes" but later reiterated how "shocked and disappointed" she was.

The case continues today.