A brothel has been ordered to pay $8,400 to a former employee for unfair dismissal after she claimed the owner had been using cameras to watch staff and clients.
The 63-year-old receptionist had worked at Spoilers in Ringwood in eastern Melbourne, on a casual basis for 15 years when she was sacked in September 2024.
Her role included answering the phones, taking bookings, answering the door for clients and washing and drying bed clothes and towels, according to Fair Work Commission finding released last week.
She also stocked the rooms where the prostitutes worked and did small cleaning jobs.
During her time at Spoilers, owner Christopher Hill became progressively more involved in the day to day running of the business, she claimed.
At the FWC hearing on April 1, which Mr Hill did not attend despite repeated attempts by Commissioner Mark Perica’s chambers to contact him, the woman gave evidence about his behaviour in recent years.
One of Mr Hill’s initiatives in mid-2023 included installing cameras and microphones ‘all around reception’, in the ‘girl’s rooms’ and in the ‘stock room’, the woman said.
She told the hearing that Mr Hill had an office upstairs where he could watch the video from the cameras and listen to audio from the microphones.
The receptionist had worked at Ringwood brothel Spoilers (pictured) for 15 years before she was sacked in September 2024
Mr Hill could watch and listen to any interaction between staff, or between staff and customers.
In September 2024, after the woman had taken several weeks off work to recover from a facelift, she came to work as usual.
She was in the laundry room, folding the washing with another worker, when she mentioned a lack of tissues in the stock room, the hearing was told.
An annoyed Mr Hill heard the exchange and came down the stairs and told the woman: ‘You’re always b****ing and moaning. If you opened your eyes, you’d find where they (the tissues) were’.
Later in the day, a client told the receptionist he was passing through the area and wanted an ‘intro’ with the sex workers.
The receptionist said at the hearing this was not usual practice. She told the client she could check for him, but suggested he come back when he was staying in the area.
Mr Hill then came ‘running down the stairs’ and the woman could hear the ‘thump, thump, thump,’ of his feet.
The owner of Spoilers (pictured), Christopher Hill, was able to watch interactions between staff and clients with his cameras, the woman told the FWC hearing
The woman claimed the brothel owner installed cameras and microphones ‘all around reception’, in the ‘girl’s rooms’ and in the ‘stock room’ (stock image)
He yelled at her in front of the client: ‘And now you are trying to sabotage the joint.’
He then made all of the sex workers have an ‘intro’ with the client while he was ‘fuming… angry and pacing,’ the woman said.
Shortly afterwards, another receptionist asked to have a word with her in a private room that didn’t have any cameras or microphones. In her evidence, the woman described it as the ‘only room that hasn’t got cameras, apart from the bedrooms’.
The other worker said she’d been called in to take over the woman’s shift and that she must hand over her keys and leave.
The woman did as she was told, said goodbye to the girls and left, and ‘that was it’. She never heard from Mr Hill again, although she received $150 for her day’s work.
In his decision last week, Commissioner Perica found that the dismissal was ‘harsh unjust and unreasonable and that compensation is the appropriate remedy’.
The brothel was ordered to pay $8,400 to its former receptionist.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Spoilers for comment.
