AN employment tribunal heard yesterday how Elvis fan David Jewers felt "intimidated, patronised, and threatened" by a supervisor who met his production line tribute to the King with a stream of obscenities.
The 37-year-old part-time club singer was marking the 25th anniversary of the King's death, last August, by singing along to A Little Less Conversation while working on the production line at the Nissan car plant, in Washington, when manager Andy Whitmore told him he was distracting other workers.
The father-of-two had also been entertaining other workers by dancing and playing air guitar.
The hearing was told that Mr Whitmore felt he was disrupting the production line.
Fifteen minutes later, Mr Jewers, from Gateshead, went to his boss and said he would "punch his head in" if he ever spoke to him like that again, Newcastle Employment Tribunal was told.
Mr Jewers, who has worked for Nissan for 11 years, said: ''It is normal to have background music playing in the workplace and I was singing along to an Elvis Presley record.
"I was happy in my work and did not believe that I was causing offence or disturbing fellow workers.
"I regularly sing along with music from the radio on my section and had never been spoken to by any supervisor in this regard.
"He (Mr Whitmore) deserved to be spoken to badly in view of what he had said to me, but in speaking to him the way I did I was using language only as forceful as the language he had used."
Mr Jewers said he had been asked to return to work soon after he had been off for four months, suffering from stress, and that this had been the cause of the outburst.
Mr Jewers, of Low Fell, Gateshead, is seeking damages for unfair dismissal.
He was sacked following an internal investigation by line manager William Armstrong, and the company ruled that his outburst amounted to gross misconduct.
But his solicitor Brian Slater said yesterday that the investigation amounted to a "kangaroo court", with Mr Armstrong acting as "judge, jury and kitchen sink". The tribunal continues.
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