The employment tribunal in Manchester awarded a sum of over £185K in January in a case brought forward by business woman Ms Cameron-Peck. Cameron-Peck launched claims against her former employer and three senior colleagues in a case involving bullying, cover-ups, and financial fraud.
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With 35 years of experience in IT and digital services, Ms Cameron-Peck joined the board of dating app start-up Ethical Social Group, ESG, in August 2021.
However, after turning down another C-level opportunity for the role, she started witnessing instances of bullying from her boardroom colleague, Ms Alexander.
Less than a month into the role, Cameron-Peck noticed how Ms Alexander was demeaning to junior staff members in meetings and dismissive of their ideas. During the tribunal, Ms.
Cameron explained that she found Ms. Alexander’s behaviour passive-aggressive, manipulative, and downright rude. Ms Alexander would make aggressive facial expressions to colleagues over video calls and even brought one to tears.
Quickly Ms Cameron-Peck became a figure that junior staff could turn to about Ms Alexander’s treatment of them. In fact, by the start of September, three employees had complained to her about the bullying. As such, Ms Cameron-Peck took it upon herself to resolve the issue and WhatsApped another boardroom colleague, Mr Pullam, on 3rd September.
She consequently followed up with a call with him on the 4th and then outlined examples of the bullying in an email on 6th September.
However, Ms Cameron’s feedback was completely ignored by senior management, leading one junior staff member to quit.
In addition to bullying, the claimant discovered that she and other employees had not been enrolled for pensions. At the start of her employment, Ms Cameron-Peck enquired about where she could find the details of her pension.
With her questions to senior staff ignored, she was informed by junior colleagues that the pension provider was supposedly Royal London.
However, upon enquiry by them, they stated they had no records of her enrolment. Furthermore, it turned out that other employees who contacted the provider were also all not enrolled. All the while, pension contributions were being taken from employees’ pay.
When confronted with this information, another board member claimed Royal London must have made a mistake.
Financial mispractice did not stop there however. To entice investors, board members falsely claimed that ESG was eligible for The Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS). The EIS is a tax relief scheme set up by the government to encourage investment in unlisted start-ups.
However, when asking for the EIS number, it was revealed the company did not have one. Nonetheless, Mr Pullam claimed they did not need one and that they would receive one soon anyway.
Unconvinced, she confirmed with HMRC that the company would not be receiving an EIS number, which is necessary for promotion of the scheme to investors, nor was it eligible in the future.
She informed Mr Pullam of this, but he continued to mislead investors. The information led her to inform HMRC, though the board was unaware of this during her dismissal.
Instead of responding to the reports of bullying and financial malpractice, other board members turned their attention to the claimant. After sending the email on 6th September, the relationship between Ms Cameron-Peck and the respondents soured significantly.
On video calls, Mr Pullam would talk to her in a condescending and derogatory manner. Mr Pullam openly called her ‘difficult’ in front of colleagues and criticised her.
In one incident, he berated Cameron-Peck for 10 minutes while she walked back to the office in silence.
In addition to her mental health, her behaviour also affected her position in the company. By the beginning of October, the company was gradually removing her from important projects or engaging with investors.
The tribunal found that by mid October, the respondents were colluding to remove Ms Cameron-Peck by any means necessary.
On October 14, Mr. Pullam accused the claimant of telling him, “Don’t tell me how to run my f***ing business” the previous week. However, Ms Cameron-Peck denied making such comments, and the tribunal found this to be a false accusation.
The claimant also revealed that she had recorded some conversations with the respondents for personal use and for her legal advisers.
However the board swiftly moved to make ‘covert recordings’ acts of gross misconduct in their disciplinary code, hoping this would help them remove her.
On 19th October she was invited to a disciplinary meeting for unspecified allegations of “serious misconduct”. Additionally, on the same day Ms Cameron-Peck was removed from the WhatsApp group chat ‘Team ESG’. On the 20th October, she provided her contractual three months notice citing the mistreatment of staff.
However, following further harassing emails, including claims of a ‘data breach’, she resigned with immediate effect on 28th October.
“I have been unhappy with the way the company has allowed mistreatment of staff members to occur and continue, despite concerns being raised directly to you and elsewhere by several people.”
Ms Cameron-Peck, resignation letter
On 25th October, the claimant sent a table of various unlawful and unethical acts she had witnessed in her time at ESG. Mr. Pullam responded by refuting all of the accusations and threatening to sue her for libel if she persisted.
At this point Ms Cameron-Peck decided to take the case to the employment tribunal, which took place in December 2023 and January 2024.
Employment judge Slater found that the claimant had made protected disclosures regarding bullying accusations and the EIS scheme. Senior staff disapproved of her whistleblowing activities, which led them to bully her and eventually remove her. This ultimately constituted constructive unfair dismissal.
Ms Cameron-Peck was an irritant in Pullam’s side, with the matters she was raising threatening his way of carrying on business Judge Slater.
The claim that Ms Cameron-Peck’s statements were libellous was not true, nor did Mr Pullam believe it to be so. Instead, it was made to try to silence her from making comments that undermined his way of doing business.
Awarding compensation in the case was complicated by the business’ financial malpractice.
Against its legal responsibility, ESG had not issued pay slips, making the claimant’s exact pay unclear. In addition, they owed the claimant for the missed pension contributions.
The judge awarded over £185K to the claimant, broken down into £97K for constructive unfair dismissal, £78K for detrimental treatment on grounds of making protected disclosures, and £10K for injury to feelings.
The Ethical Social Group ceased trading in October 2022.
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