Car salesman was fired from Wednesbury dealership for being 'too old' at 52

Gary Hawkins took legal action against Wednesbury motor dealership giants Carcraft – where he had worked for just eight months. The father-of-four told a Birmingham employment tribunal a boss at the firm fired him in November last year.

At the hearing, he said a regional manager at CC Automotive Group Ltd, which trades as Carcraft, told him bluntly his career with the business was over because of his age. He was told by his manager: "You are too old at 52."

The employment tribunal backed Mr Hawkins' claim of age discrimination and awarded him thousands of pounds in a payout on Wednesday.

Mr Hawkins, who lives in Sutton Coldfield, and is married to Heather, 48, said today: "I have struck a blow for middle-aged men and women everywhere.

"I didn't even know I wasn't part of the youth culture until they got rid of me.

"I believe I was the oldest guy working there and they had about 520 members of staff on all the sites. The judge said I was the oldest manager and probably one of the oldest staff members.

"We had a new regional manager take over and he came in and told everybody on the first day if he had to sack everybody to improve the sales then he would. He fired me at 6pm on a Saturday. On that day he had already sacked two salesmen and another left because of how he treated them.

"It was a two minute conversation. He pulled me to one side and said 'I think you're too old for my team', you're sacked.

"He liked 20-year-olds he could bully, he didn't like anybody with an opinion."

The company denied ageism and claimed Mr Hawkins had failed to motivate his team and had not trained them properly. However, he denied his performance had been shoddy and stressed there were regular team meetings where ways of improving sales were discussed. The tribunal heard other roles had been offered to him, but the firm admitted other members of staff had lost their jobs.

Tribunal judge Peter Rose QC also asked the ages of other managers, past and present – and it emerged Mr Hawkins had been the oldest in his field. Mr Hawkins now has a job as a manager in the car sales industry.

Carcraft declined to comment.