Cleaner sexually harrassed by bra, cream and condoms joke

Two workers set the scene to make a colleague believe there had been an orgy. Photo / 123rf

A bra and women's boxer shorts, condoms filled with cream and empty beer and wine bottles were used to trick a school cleaner into believing his colleagues had had a sex orgy.

Cleaner Shane Green was led to believe two staff members rumoured to be having an affair had been involved in the sex romp at Helensvale State School, Queensland, in September 2014.

He was humiliated when two days later, after cleaning up the scene, he was told it had been a prank, Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCat) heard.

Green has now been awarded $156,051 compensation for sexual harassment by a groundsman and a female cleaner involved in the prank.

The groundsman, who bought condoms, set up the scene with the help a cleaner, who bought women's boxer shorts and a bra, the tribunal heard.

The groundsman took a mattress, pillow and bedclothes from the school sickroom and put them on the staff kitchenette floor.

He had even squirted cream into two condoms, putting one on the ground and another on the table, put the bra on the table and boxer shorts on the back of a chair.

The groundsman left empty beer and wine bottles lying around, discharged a number of party poppers and dropped chips on the floor.

Green told the tribunal he had to clean up what he thought were bodily fluids.

Green told the tribunal the groundsman asked him to sniff the boxer shorts.

After the groundsman told him two days later that it had been a prank, Green fell to his knees and later took the underwear and threw it on the other man's vehicle.

The tribunal heard the groundsman drove around the school grounds all day without realising the bra was stuck on his car lights.

The tribunal member said the fact that the groundsman let it be known around the school that Green had fallen for the prank indicated it was his intention to humiliate him.

Green's Gold Coast lawyer Bruce Simmonds of law firm Parker Simmonds, said the cleaner was greatly distressed because he had children at the school.

"He was horrified and subjected to great emotional stress by this trauma, especially when they didn't own up to the joke and left him believing it was real," Simmonds said.

Simmonds said there was other sexual harassment and Green had to step down from his job and rely on WorkCover.

"He was devastated," Simmonds said.

After finding out the truth about the orgy prank, Green lodged a claim for sexual harassment.

In the January 10 decision, QCat found Green was subjected to sexual harassment on the prank and on other occasions between September, 2014, and June, 2015.

It ordered that the State, the groundsman and cleaner had to pay Green a total of $156,051 in compensation.

"Mr Green would like to resume his job at the school but he feels humiliated by the experience and right now his future is unclear," Simmonds said.

- News.com