A married mother of three has won thousands of pounds in compensation from a gay nightclub that discriminated against her because she is heterosexual.

Sharon Legg, 33, who worked on the door at Dreams in Bournemouth, said that her manager had repeatedly called her derogatory names such as “breeder”.

She brought her claim for unfair dismissal under a law intended to protect lesbians, gay men and bisexuals from discrimination in the workplace. She told an employment tribunal that she was frequently subjected to abuse because she was not a lesbian. She said that fellow doorstaff refused to obey her instructions and constantly made life difficult for her.

Mrs Legg was eventually sacked without warning after a dispute with a colleague, and took her employer, Rubyz, which owns Dreams, to the employment tribunal.

Sarah Courtney, her barrister, used the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations Act 2003 to win the case. The tribunal in Southampton awarded Mrs Legg £3,000 in compensation for being harassed for being “straight” and a further £3,222 for being unfairly dismissed. However, the tribunal did not find that she was sacked because she was heterosexual.

Ms Courtney said: “This was an unusual case. The legislation was brought in to prevent gay and lesbian people from being harassed. I haven’t come across a case like this before.”

Mrs Legg began working at Dreams in May 2005 and was promoted to head of security a year later before losing her job in June last year.

She said that her manager, Scott Rhodes, began harrassing soon after she was promoted. “In the beginning I just laughed it off and decided not to say anything. Then he started saying ‘Urgh, you’re a breeder’ and that really started to grate on me. If the shoe was on the other foot and I was saying things like ‘Urgh, your gay’, I don’t think he would have stood for it. But he was my manager and I was the only straight woman in a gay environment so I didn’t know who to tell.”

She added. “I am friends with a lot of gay people and have had quite a lot of support from the gay community . . . I made this complaint for gay people, straight people, anyone who has ever been harassed.

“I’m like a bulldog — I don’t let go. I honestly didn’t care about the money.” Nick King, director of Rubyz, said that the company had done all that it could to protect Mrs Legg from harassment. “We accept that Sharon was dismissed due to proper procedures not being followed. We have a zero- tolerance attitude towards any kind of discrimination.”

He added, however: “We are considering appealing.”

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