Using the phrase ‘back in your day’ to older colleagues could be considered age harassment, an employment judge has ruled. The “barbed and unwelcome” expression highlighting the age gap between two people may amount to “unwanted conduct”, a tribunal concluded. The ruling came in the case of nursing assistant Margaret Couperthwaite – who is in her 60s – who sued for age harrassment, alleging a younger colleague suggested an operation had been free on the NHS ‘back in your day’. Although Ms Couperthwaite’s claim was dismissed after the tribunal found the comment was never made, the panel agreed that had the comment genuinely been made then it would accept that it was related to age and would have likely accepted it was unwanted conduct. Ms Couperthwaite had claims of discriminatory dismissal, disability discrimination and harassment thrown out after working at Hilton Nursing Partners, in Ashford, Kent. The hearing in Watford was told she started working as a personal nursing assistant from December 2018 until her dismissal. She was twice promoted at the centre which providers healthcare and patient assessments for those who have been discharged from hospital, the last of which was in January 2021. Ms Coupertherwaite had suffered from...