Bank to pay out £150 after ginger jibe upset

A bank has been forced to apologise and pay out £150 after a worker made a joke about a customer's ginger hair.

Red-haired Laura Payton was shocked when a member of staff asked her if she was glad her daughter did not have "ginger hair like her" when a picture flashed up on her mobile phone.

The comment was made as she waited to speak to a financial adviser in the Halifax branch in Wolverhampton's Mander Centre. The mother-of-two made a formal complaint and was offered £150 in compensation and has received an apology, but said that that was not good enough.

BT telecommunications worker Mrs Payton, aged 32, said: "I didn't really think about the comment when she said it because I was being ushered along to speak to someone. It wasn't until I went back to work and spoke to a colleague about it that I realised it was something that shouldn't have been said.

"I was teased as child about my hair but you don't expect that from someone working in a professional capacity. If I did something like that at work I'd be out on my ear."

Mrs Payton, of Wychall Drive, Bushbury, had gone to talk about moving acc-ounts she shares with husband Mark, 47, to Halifax.

As she checked the time on her mobile phone, a picture of her daughter, Beth, three, flashed up. It was then that the comment was made, said Mrs Payton.

Mrs Payton said she made a complaint to Halifax on the same day.

She accepted an offer of £150 compensation, but Mrs Payton, who also has another child, five-week-old Flynn, is still upset.

In a letter to Mrs Payton, Halifax complaint handler Matthew Kay apologised for the "distress caused".

The letter said: "The comment made was totally inappropriate and I agree this shouldn't have been said."

No-one from Halifax was available for comment today.