I recently raised a grievance against a colleague who has persistently stared at me for many months when I'm working and on one ocassion made me feel very uncomfortable by pacing up and down very annoyed around my area of work when I didn't say hi to him. He has also sat very close to me during a leaving drinks so that his leg was touching mine.
I have one key witness who has seen him pacing up and down that time. All other witnesses were his boss and his boss' friend (they will stick up for him) and 2 other colleagues who don't know him very well and just think he is awkward. Everyone was interviewed and HR agreed that my key witness supported but it was not enough evidence as she had already known about his behaviour and could have already made that assumption prior to witnessing his behaviour pacing up and down.
I have brought up many examples of him being strange with me in terms of staring and even after he had been spoken with informally, he still continued to make me feel uncomfortable. Such as always wanting to come inside my area of work, i don't have any evidence of these unfortunately.
There was even one time where he came to the back room to hang a key and stood in there for a few minutes, this room is behind where I work, he was asked about this he just said he was killing time and waiting for a meal with his family.
Other ocassions he has said that he either didn't look at me or he had no memory of it.
In the grievance interview, the key witness referred to the guy by a codename that we have for him just so its not obvious who we are talking about. I think she accidentally let this slip and told them it was because I didn't feel comfortable to even say his name. HR puicked up on this and said that the codename we gave him has negative sexual connotations. We codenamed him Randy and honestly I had no idea that had those connotations until HR brought it up.
They have concluded that I grossly misjudged his awkward character, painted him out to be predatory and dangerous and that my anxiety around him stems from the time that he has sat too close to me only. When this clealy not the case and not the only occasion either, he basically lied and got away with it. They also said that they hope I take their outcome and reflect on this and to try to not further ruin his reputation.
HR wants to meet with me face to face but I feel too jaded and upset to even know what to say, I haven't been able to stop crying.i don't know what to do…