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FLASHING your bra, mooning a manager and the display of a penis made of dough — they were all part of working in Wodonga hospital’s kitchen, the County Court heard.
Linda Dudderidge, who took legal action against the health service after having her pants pulled down, told Judge Robert Dyer of various incidents which had left her disturbed.
She said as part of kitchen banter women regularly lifted their shirts to show their bras and she had joined in.
At a different time, she said, a kitchen worker dropped her pants and exposed her underwear-clad buttocks to a manager who did not take any action in response.
Ms Dudderidge said a 45-centimetre penis had been made of dough and displayed on another occasion.
“It was set on the urn in such a way that for me or anybody else having to use the urn, (they) would come across it first,” she said.
Ms Dudderidge said there were sexual conversations and she was asked about her waxing regime.
“I was heckled to the point that they would continuously ask about it that I invited them to have a look to basically shut them up and I pulled my pants out a few inches because they were elastic,” she said.
Ms Dudderidge also said she was lured to the hospital morgue, where there was an open coffin, in a bid to “scare” her.
She also said a worker had come to the kitchen with a dildo on a bicycle seat and had left it there for an extended period.
Ms Dudderidge said she was sworn at by colleagues and labelled a “dobber” and the “kitchen police”.
The hospital’s former human resources manager Don Elder said he was not aware of the range of incidents highlighted by Ms Dudderidge, but agreed with her barrister that they would breach the organisation’s code of conduct.
“It’s certainly not what I’d describe as normal,” Mr Elder said of the kitchen behaviour.
“On the face of it it’s not quite functional.”