I was victim of the John Lewis bottom slapper: Male shop assistant claims female colleague told him 'I do that to all the boys'

For decades it has enjoyed a reputation as the respectable department store of choice for the middle classes.

But John Lewis was yesterday revealed as the unlikely setting for a rumpus that could have come straight from a script for Are You Being Served?

A male shop assistant, Konstantinos Kalomoiris, 40, has accused a female colleague of repeatedly slapping him on the bottom.



And when he told her to stop he said she replied: 'I do that to all the boys.'

Shop assistant Konstantinos Kalomoiris claims Bianca Revrenna tapped his behind in the locker room and on the shop floor. The 40-year-old said each time he was slapped by the 68-year-old woman she paused for a few seconds 'like she was savouring it'

Now he has launched a sex discrimination case, claiming 68-year-old Bianca Revrenna smacked him three times, telling him: ‘I do that to all the boys.’



When he made a formal complaint, he said his manager told him he ‘should be delighted’ that a woman liked him so much. And Miss Revrenna insisted she just ‘touched his back in a caring way, like a mother or grandmother’.

Mr Kalomoiris claimed he was so offended by the three separate ­slapping incidents that he eventually quit his job in disgust.



The furniture sales assistant, who worked at the chain’s flagship London store in Oxford Street, said Miss Revrenna first targeted him when they were together in the staff locker room in October 2009.



He said she slapped his bottom once and he asked her not to do it again, but did not make an official complaint.



Two months later, he claimed she smacked him again as they worked together in the store’s Christmas Shop.

Flagship: Mr Kalomoiris and Mrs Revrenna both worked at the John Lewis store on Oxford Street. She is one of the store's oldest staff members having racked up 40 years' service

Describing scenes reminiscent of the 1970s sitcom starring John Inman and Mollie Sugden, he said: ‘Bianca slapped my bum again. I repeated to her not to do that. I said, “I’ve told you before”.

‘She said she always did that to the boys, and that she didn’t mean anything by it. Every time she did it she would pause for a couple of seconds like she was savouring it. It was like she enjoyed it.’

After the third alleged incident – on the shop floor in April last year – Mr Kalomoiris, of New Cross, South-East London, made a formal complaint to his manager.

But his colleagues laughed at him, he told the tribunal. ‘My manager said I should be delighted that a colleague liked me enough to slap my bum,’ he said. ‘He said if a woman slapped his ­bottom, he would not be offended at all. I was told I was too sensitive.’

An internal investigation ruled that Miss Revrenna had not intended to upset her younger colleague.

But Mr Kalomoiris, who had worked at the shop since 2006, said he ‘couldn’t take it any more’ and resigned. ­Personnel manager Stewart Dawson, who led the internal investigation, said other managers had described the 40-year-old as over-sensitive.

The case is potentially embarrassing for John Lewis, which prides itself on its fair treatment of workers, who are known as ‘partners’.



Some of the scenes described by Kalomoiris in court evoked memories of the shenanigans in department store Grace Brothers in classic sitcom Are You Being Served?

Lawyers for the company, which opened its first shop in 1864, said Miss Revrenna had been with the chain for 40 years, was one of the oldest employees and had enjoyed an ‘unblemished career’.

Miss Revrenna denied ever slapping Mr Kalomoiris’s bottom, but said she had patted his lower back twice in an attempt to reassure him.

She said: ‘I did not slap his bottom. I touched his lower back in a caring way, much like a mother or a grandmother.

‘I’m a friendly person and I approached him in the same way I would approach any other colleague.

‘I have worked at John Lewis for 40 years and never has anyone said that I am too familiar, or made a complaint against me. I am astonished that the situation has come to this.’

Asked if there had been any sexual element to her behaviour, she replied: ‘Why would I do that? I don’t go around doing things like that. I’m 68.’

Store manager Martin Nicholls said Miss Revrenna was ‘well-liked and respected’ by her colleagues.

Of Mr Kalomoiris he said: ‘He often interprets things that other people would find trivial. I don’t think the majority of people would be offended by this, and I don’t think it would be considered sexual contact.’

Mr Nicholls told the Central ­London tribunal he did not remember telling Mr Kalomoiris he should be ‘delighted’ by Miss Revrenna’s attention, but admitted telling him not to take it seriously.

Asked if he would have acted the same way if a female employee reported being slapped by a male colleague, he said: ‘I would react to any allegation of inappropriate behaviour in the same way, whether it was a man or a woman making the complaint.’