Lawyer wins court after CCTV showed ‘consensual from both parties’ after female colleague lied about sexually assaulting her

A lawyer who was sacked after lying that a female colleague had ‘sexually assaulted’ him has won an unfair dismissal case after CCTV showed their conversation was consensual.

Djamshid Rustambekov was accused of sexually harassing his colleague in July last year after luring her to a disabled toilet during a work night and touching and kissing her.

Mr Rustambekov was investigated over his allegations and another allegation that he inappropriately touched a second colleague the same night.

In September, CCTV revealed the encounter was ‘consensual’ as the woman willingly kissed and went to the toilet, while London firm Fieldfisher LLP sacked her a month later for gross misconduct.

A court found it was clear the woman’s claims were ‘manifestly false’ in light of the ‘indisputable’ footage and criticized the law firm’s handling of the case for failing to question ‘inconsistencies in her evidence’.

Mr Rustambekov, who has worked in Fieldfisher’s Dispute Resolution department since 2019, is currently set to receive compensation.

The court in central London heard that Mr Rustambekov liked to be seen as a ‘lady man’ at work and was fond of ‘flirtatious banter’.

It emerged that ‘no one took the flirtatious jokes from Mr Rustambekov seriously or perceived them as a form of sexual harassment’.

The court heard Mr Rustambekov and his colleagues regularly played Snog, Marry, Run away – a game in which people rate which colleagues they would like to sleep with – but this would be ‘in jest’.

The unnamed woman who accused him of harassing her said of Mr Rustambekov: ‘I would be at the top of his list many times.’

During Fieldfisher’s investigation into Mr Rustambekov, one of the female directors, Elora Mukherjee, said: ‘In my opinion, if he (Rustambekov) had the chance to fuck anyone, he would do it.’

Others said Mr Rustambekov enjoyed being ‘the center of the party’.

He regularly asked women if they would go out with him and told them: ‘I’ll cater to your every need – I’ll pour your prosecco,’ the court heard.

In 2023, during a work night at the popular Savage Garden rooftop bar at London’s Hilton Hotel, Mr Rustambekov allegedly sexually assaulted his colleague.

The woman, identified only as First Colleague, said: ‘He routinely tried to come at me, I always said no, I’m not interested and he’s married.

‘(He) was telling me while we were drinking how angry he was at me, that I always rejected him, that he was trying so hard and that I was never interested.

‘Once again, I said I wasn’t interested and thought that would be the end of it.

‘ ‘Come on, you always reject me, it’s so sad. “Why don’t you come to the bathroom and fuck me right there?” he said.

‘I went to go to the toilet in the evening (and) when I opened the door to go out, he was waiting for me.

‘He caught me and took me to the disabled cabin and locked the door. I went to pick the lock and he pinned me against the wall.

‘I tried to reach the lock, but it pushed me away. He kissed me and I didn’t want that to happen.

He tried to put his hand under my skirt. I was trying to get away.”

The woman said another female colleague began calling her name and they left the booth.

Colleague One also alleged that about six months ago Mr Rustambekov pressured him to cancel the Uber and ‘go back to the office with him’ after a night out.

Mr Rustambekov was investigated over the allegations and an allegation that he touched a second colleague inappropriately on a July night.

He was later suspended in August 2023.

The lawyer denied making unwanted advances and claimed Colleague One “admitted to him that she had affairs with three men at the firm and that the one she really liked was married and did not reciprocate.”

In September 2023, the bar where the alleged assault took place provided a written overview of what the CCTV showed.

The report said: ‘According to CCTV, there appears to be consent from both parties. Female A initiates the hug, Male A honors it.

‘They hug for a while, then they start kissing, and while Male A is hugging, he slowly heads towards the disabled toilet. Female A does not resist, no force was used.’

Ramatu Banga, a partner at the firm who chaired the disciplinary hearing, concluded that although the woman gave a false statement, she did not do so deliberately.

Although the firm had no definitive findings regarding the toilet incident, Mr Rustambekov was dismissed in November 2023 for gross misconduct.

The law firm reached this conclusion after concluding that he pestered the woman to leave with him and touched the second colleague inappropriately.

In court, Labor Judge Farin Anthony said that after the CCTV emerged, Fieldfisher should have disregarded everything the woman had claimed as it was not credible.

“I find it completely strange that Ms Banga thought it was not important to question the woman about the inconsistencies in her evidence against the CCTV footage,” Judge Anthony said.

‘(The woman’s) version of events immediately preceding the accessible toilet incident is completely unsupported by the description of the CCTV footage and is completely unbelievable.

‘The sequence of events shows that he knew that his complaint about being grabbed and pulled into an accessible toilet was clearly false.

‘I find that his false statement about the accessible toilet incident was not a mistake and was not due to confusion.

‘What could be the reason? ‘The lie may have been done solely to protect his own interests and to protect his reputation, especially given that (another colleague) witnessed him leaving the accessible toilet with (Mr Rustambekov).’

The judge said the disturbing allegation was not substantiated because Mr Rustambekov offered her a lift home and only touched the second woman on the shoulder.

Compensation will be determined later.