How a ‘string vest’ claim may send Damilare Ajao to jail

A City investment banker, Damilare Ajao, may be heading to jail after falsely claiming that his female manager sexually harassed him by commenting on his string vest.

Ajao, who worked with German finance giant Commerzbank in London, had alleged that his boss made flirtatious remarks about seeing his vest through his shirt and even tried to touch his Gucci belt buckle in the staff canteen.

But the claims, which formed the basis of his 2019 employment tribunal suit against the bank, were later dismissed by Judge Anthony Snelson, who ruled that Ajao’s story was “false and in large part made up”, calling it “pure invention.”

Now, Commerzbank has dragged the former banker back to court, accusing him of “wicked lies” and seeking to have him jailed for contempt. If found guilty, Ajao could spend up to two years in prison.

According to the bank’s lawyers, Ajao’s fabricated allegations caused severe psychological distress to the female manager, identified only as Q, who has since developed a serious psychiatric illness.

“What Mr Ajao has done is to manufacture a wholly bogus claim of sexual assault and harassment,” the bank’s lawyer, Louis Browne KC, told the High Court. “He did that to obtain compensation, and those false allegations have had a very detrimental effect on Q’s health.”

But Ajao insists he did not lie. His defence lawyer, Sasha Wass KC, argued that he genuinely believed he was a victim of harassment, saying he merely “perceived” the comments about his vest to be inappropriate.

“She says it happened once and didn’t mean it sexually,” Wass said. “He says it happened more than once and took it as a sexual comment. There’s room here for a grey area.”

The case continues, but for Ajao, what started as a workplace complaint over a string vest may now end with the loss of his freedom.