Kathy McCabe - "Honesty Goes to the Core of my Very Being"

"Honesty goes to the core of my very being."
Kathy McCabe 6 June 2008

During mediation with Kathy, she came out with this line about three times. Kathy must think that the more times you repeat something, the truer it becomes.

The mediator informed Kathy and me in advance of the meeting, that we were to prepare and read out a statement to each other, and then we were to begin asking questions of each other.

Kathy read out her statement. It was full of nonsense about me. I read out my statement. Kathy didn't like it because I had mentioned that she had been dishonest with me. Kathy flipped her lid. She made one almighty fuss. She demanded that I withdraw my accusation of dishonesty. I couldn't. The best I could say was to change it to "Sometimes you have been dishonest with me." She still didn't like it.

Then when it came time for me to ask questions, Kathy said she wasn't going to answer any of my questions, and that if I even asked her a question, she would walk out of the mediation. I offered to wait until we were alone to ask questions, because I thought she was maybe embarrassed to answer my questions in the presence of her friend, Colin Sinclair, who she had brought along for support. But she wasn't going to answer my questions any time or anywhere.

At his interview for the grievance process, Colin said Kathy did answer my questions. Well, in that case, she won't mind answering them again at the tribunal.

I intend to show you at least one example of Kathy's dishonesty on here. It is a very special example, because it also shows Kathy's disrespect for me, even though I was one of the oldest and most senior members of the team. She wanted to show off to the team just how disrespectful she was of me. I was too stupid to deserve respect. That was the image she wanted the team to have of me. She was encouraging them to be disrespectful too. Is it any wonder that Eileen MacDonald would then ignore any advice I gave her? Eileen was at the opposite end of the spectrum from me. Kathy respected her when she didn't even have the basic knowledge for her job. Yet Eileen would arrogantly complain about my performance and integrity. Not only had I explained to Eileen that she was wrong, but I had explained to Kathy that Eileen was wrong. But two years later, Eileen was still making the same mistakes. Mistakes that even a student programmer would think were absurd.

In her grievance document, Kathy talks about the mediation process: "Fundamental problem is that Allan said I was dishonest. I stated that questioning my honesty and integrity was a serious personal attack and that if this was the basis from which he was working then I could not see how we could establish a proper working relationship and that we would have to recognise that mediation had failed. Allan's interpretation of this was that I was breaking the mediation process. He had to be told several times by Liz, and I had to repeat my words, but he did not accept the premise. I stated that he needed to moderate the statement. He moderated it to a statement that I was sometimes dishonest. After a 5 min timeout I stated that I acknowledged that he had made a slight moderation but that this still wasn't enough. This was ignored.

It's interesting that this particular document was a document she wrote for herself originally two days after the mediation. Yet she couldn't even bring herself to tell the truth to herself. Fascinating!

She then says "On reflection this was the most difficult and deeply unpleasant experience of my working life. I am not convinced that Allan is prepared to move forward, but rather he will still want to go through every detail of the grievance point by point. I could do this but am not convinced that Allan would accept my explanations. I believe that his views are so deeply entrenched that this is the only view he will accept. I believe that the mediator found his doggedness rather frustrating and she had to pull him up on more than one occasion because his interjections were pejorative and unhelpful, or both."

Basically, she is admitting that she refused to answer my questions. But she puts her own spin on the actual events.

In May 2009, I had my appraisal with Kathy. I told her that I wanted to attend the Oracle conference which is held annually at the end of the year. It's a conference that is attended predominately by Database Administrators (DBAs) like myself. When I first became DBA, Kathy said I would attend the conference every year. But she changed her mind. Instead she used the staff development fund mainly for her friends who were mostly all women. So, for about six years on the trot, she wouldn't let me go. That is bullying as well as sex discrimination. At my appraisal she was very dismissive of my request. She abruptly said "Noted." I reminded her that I hadn't attended for several years. Again, she abruptly said "Noted." In fact she put exactly that on the appraisal form. "Noted."

I talked to several colleagues about his later on. Everybody knew that Kathy had been bullying me by preventing me from attending that conference. They all said that she was bound to let me attend that year. I said I got the feeling she wasn't going to let me go just from her attitude at my appraisal.

Sure enough, I wasn't selected to attend the conference. Kathy had again chosen others to attend conferences, though. Eric and Jackie wrote to the team to inform us that they would be out of the office to attend a conference. I emailed Jackie and copied to the team. I said I wouldn't be out of the office because I hadn't been chosen again. I jokingly asked her what the secret was to making a successful request because each year my request was rejected.

Kathy replied to me and the team pointing out that she is not a mind reader, and that if I wanted to attend a conference, I should have asked. Then she added that I hadn't asked to attend that year or any previous year.

That's what I mean when I say that Kathy is likely to come out with any stupid lie on the spur of the moment. Honesty wasn't at the core of her very being when she sent that email. Kathy had shown her true colours. And this was less than a year after Mark Toole told her that criticism was to be delivered privately and should be evidence based.

I calmly replied to Kathy's email saying that it was not appropriate language and that it was an attempt to publicly humiliate me. I told her that I still had copies of some of my written requests.

She had nowhere to go. She had basically called me a liar publicly. She had tried to publicly humiliate me by suggesting that I was stupid to think that she could read minds. And to top it off, she was lying to the whole team, and I could prove it.

It didn't end there though. It was still simmering away in her head. She came up with a plan to clear her from her own stupidity. Days later, I received an email from her inviting me to meet with her to talk about the appropriate way to request attendance at a conference. At first I didn't understand what she was meaning. It didn't make sense. Then it suddenly hit me. The reason she was inviting me to meet with her was because it made her email visible to team members who regularly looked at her calendar. It was devious bullying. She wanted to give the impression to colleagues, that although I had requested attendance, I had used an inappropriate method. She was trying to get herself off the hook.

I wrote to her and asked her to remove the email from public display. I quoted part of the university's bullying policy to her. She briefly made it private, and then she made it public again.

Eventually, Mark Toole had to tell her to remove the email from public display. He also told her to rephrase her email to make the meeting sound as though it had a more positive purpose. She wrote again and said that the meeting was to find a better procedure for requesting attendance at conferences.

There was no changing Kathy. And now she has got herself in knots.

And, of course, Eileen Schofield didn't consider any of this to be bullying behaviour. Apparently every allegation I made was rejected, yet most of Kathy's vexatious allegations were upheld. Funny that! Is it any wonder that Eileen Schofield receives death threats?

Then that muppet, Kevin Clarke said he saw no flaw in the process.

Eileen MacDonald - The Power of Gossip

Eileen MacDonald, 53 Castle Rd, Stirling, FK9 5JE

The person I fear most at the forthcoming Employment Tribunal hearing is Eileen MacDonald. Eileen seems to have some magical or hypnotic ability to persuade people that she is somehow the victim, when in fact she is the perpetrator. That alone would be an extraordinary ability, but she somehow manages to do it, despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary. It's almost as though she is able to manipulate the part of the brain that normally processes facts, so that it can only process and consider emotion. And she has managed to do this with so many people, that I fear that she could do it with the members of the tribunal. I'm the only person I know of that her special powers don't work on. It's as though my fact processor refuses to be sidetracked my emotion. No amount of emotion will make my brain think that two plus two is anything other than four. I'm hard wired to think logically, and I can only hope that the tribunal members are too.

Here are the facts; Eileen is a compulsive liar who was jealous of me. She used her powers of gossip to persuade others to think badly of me. It appears that people believed whatever she said, including our manager, Kathy McCabe. Eileen told Kathy another whopper, and although Kathy believed it, she asked Eileen to put it in writing, so that she could hit me right between the eyes with it. I replied to Kathy with the facts. Kathy didn't like the facts, so she cancelled the meeting she had arranged with Eileen and me. I thought it was well overdue for Eileen to face the facts, so I lodged a grievance against her. At the same time, I lodged a grievance against Kathy, because she should not have cancelled that meeting. Instead she should have done what she was paid to do, and manage a very difficult team member that she had recruited. That is a fact too.

Kathy refused to handle my grievance against Eileen, so she passed it on to Peter Kemp. Peter didn't handle my grievance either. Apparently, Eileen emailed Peter because she was finding her situation very stressful.

What seems to have happened is that the university's responsibility to handle my grievance within a reasonable time, was put to one side while all and sundry provided emotional support for Eileen. As a result, the facts of the matter were all ignored, and everybody's energy was used to paint me as the baddie who had upset a pregnant colleague. The fact that Eileen had got herself in this mess by gossiping about me, seems to have got lost somewhere among the emotional camouflage.

Below is an email Eileen sent to Kathy about her situation. This was about seven months after I lodged my grievance. While all the King's horses and all the King's men were running around providing more and more support for Eileen, nobody was giving a damn about the fact that I was Eileen's victim. I lodged those grievances just a few weeks after a five week period of sick leave due to stress.

In an extraordinary set of circumstances, my manager whom I had a grievance against, went to visit Eileen, whom I also had a grievance against, at her home to discuss those grievances I had against them. You couldn't make this stuff up!

In the end, Eileen tells another pack lies, Mark Toole who also ignored my grievance against Eileen says he believes Eileen's malicious complaint because he cannot think of any reason why she should lie. He doesn't bother looking at the evidence, or try to explain how it could possibly be true. He will have to explain to the tribunal how it could be more likely to be true than false. That will be impossible!

I find it quite extraordinary that so many people should wish to provide support for someone who would make up malicious lies in an attempt to deprive someone of their career. One of the strangest things is that I had shown Lynn McDonald evidence that Eileen had lied. So why on earth would she then provide support to her to get her through the summer? Lynn was one of the people I thought I could trust.

At the tribunal, I intend to show Eileen her statement, and then I will show her the evidence that proves that she lied. Following the hearing, I will publish the proof here.


If Eileen was feeling vulnerable and exposed two and a half year ago, it is possible that she will feel even more vulnerable and exposed at the tribunal. It's almost three and a half years since I lodged my grievance. The grievance procedure says it should have been handled within three weeks. I think that soon it will finally be heard. That's unless Eileen 'Houdini' MacDonald can somehow wriggle out of it again.

Theoretically, of course, she has nothing to fear at the tribunal. According to Mr Toole, there was no reason for her to lie, and no evidence that she did lie. And also according to Mr Toole, there is just no way she could have made up such a convincing story by colluding with others, because he said it just wasn't possible in the time they had available.

For years Eileen had been making up lies about me because she was jealous of me being good at my job, and because colleagues recognised me as being good at my job. Eileen would frequently ask me to do her work for her, because she couldn't do it. And like the mug I am, I did it. And while I did it, she was off gossiping about me behind my back. Of course, when she was cowardly lying about me behind my back, I couldn't defend myself. Then when I saw her email to Kathy, I was prevented from defending myself. Then when she made her false statements, I was prevented from defending myself again. Finally, I'm going to have my chance to defend myself and to confront her with the indisputable facts. Justice has been a long time coming, but it will sure taste sweet.

Eileen MacDonald declared war on me. She is going to wish she hadn't bothered.

The Danger of Gossip

Selina Gibb, Riverbank Lodge, Auchinlay Rd, Dunblane, FK15 9BF

In earlier posts I spoke of Selina Gibb's involvement in having me sacked. I had assumed that somehow Eileen MacDonald had forced Selina to make up stories about me to help in her attempt to get rid of me. On reflection, I think I may have given Selina too much credit as being an innocent person being forced against her will. Having thought about it, I don't think that is realistic.

When interviewed for the disciplinary investigation, Selina gave false accounts of two separate conversations I had with her; one in private and one which was witnessed by about seven colleagues. Selina and I had always got on very well, and it seemed bizarre that she would do that voluntarily. It didn't make sense, so I thought she must have been forced. But I now think that is unlikely. I now believe it is far more likely that Selina found herself in an awkward position due to her own stupidity.

There was a strong gossip culture in the team, and it seems that for years colleagues were being drip fed gossip about me by Eileen who I knew had been jealous of me. Selina knew that Eileen hated me and loved gossip. I think that following each of those conversations, Selina has sought to ingratiate herself with Eileen by misrepresenting them to her, and making them sound sinister. She was feeding the gossip monster. Selina would not at that stage have been planning to have me fired. She was just playing the game of gossiping about me.

Later when Eileen saw an opportunity for getting rid of me, she would have asked Selina for her help by reporting these 'sinister' conversations. That put Selina in an awkward position, because she either had to tell Eileen that she had lied to her, or she does the unthinkable, and formally repeats her lies.

Immediately before she gave her statement, Selina had been on holiday for about three weeks; plenty of time to weigh up her options. As a mother to three babies, Selina definitely made the wrong choice by deciding to repeat her lie in order to end a man's career. What began as a game of gossip, could end in disaster.

Selina claimed that, because of these conversations, she was frightened and anxious when with me. I have audio and documentary evidence that proves this to be a laughable lie. Selina's luck couldn't have been much worse. I mean, what were the chances of me accidentally recording her joking with me, and that the recording would even include an indication that it followed those allegedly sinister conversations? And what were the chances of her emailing me to invite me to hear 'lots of funnies' while she was allegedly frightened and anxious to be around me, and that I'd still have that email? The University has heard the recording and seen the email. The email and the recording, along with a transcript of its contents have been submitted to the tribunal. The university accepts that the transcript accurately describes what is said in the recording.

It shows that Selina had begun the conversation with me, and it shows her interrupting a work discussion I was having with another colleague. She interrupted in order to joke with me. Selina does not sound frightened or anxious, and I don't sound as though I would expect her to be frightened or anxious. We sound as though we are two colleagues who got on very well. Selina does not sound as though she is so frightened of me that she could no longer work with me.

To lie about someone in this manner in order to have him lose his livelihood represents serious defamation for which Selina is personally responsible. In her defense, she may claim that it was so obvious she was lying that the University should have known, and not fired me. I don't think that would stand up to scrutiny though. Her intention was to be believed that she could no longer work with me because she was so frightened. And officially, her story was so convincing that I was sacked. She has also had the opportunity to right her wrong since April 2010, but chose to continue with it. Judging by how happy she appears when she is out and about with Eileen, my situation doesn't seem to be causing her conscience too much trouble.

Bearing in mind that it is obvious that she lied, and that there were so many witnesses as well, I think the responsible thing for Selina to do would be to come forward and tell the truth. I wouldn't leave it too long though. I hope she fully understands the seriousness of her situation.

Last month, a student was jailed for six months when he pleaded guilty to stealing a £3.50 bottle of water. Selina's premeditated crime is infinitely worse, in my view. Her crime has cost me tens of thousands of pounds, has caused me very serious mental injury, and has possibly ended my career, and may even cause the end of my life. Needless to say, I'm very angry with Selina. VERY angry!

Lets consider Selina's thought process when she did this.

1 A complete lack of integrity. She knew that what she was doing was wrong and wicked, but she just went ahead and did it anyway. What a role model for her kids!

2 Totally selfish. No concern about what would happen to me. No concern about embarrassment to her family and to the university.

3 No consideration given to the fact that there were witnesses. She didn't expect the witnesses to find out about her false allegations.

4 No consideration given to the fact that there may be evidence that would show she lied.

5 No concern that she didn't have a single piece of evidence to support her allegations.

6 No consideration given to the fact that her partners in crime would be found out or admit to colluding with her. They must all have thought their stories were air tight.

7 No concern about what action I may take in response, even without evidence that she lied.

8 No concern that making false allegations is a sackable offence.

9 No concern about how difficult it would be to get a new job, having a record of making false allegations. Who would want to work with someone who makes false allegations?

10 No concern that she may have to testify under oath at a tribunal.

11 No concern about the laws of defamation.

12 No concern at all that I had thought of her as a friend, and had bent over backwards to help her.

13 No concern that the world would find out who the real Selina is.

14 No concern that it may eat at her conscience later, because she has no conscience.

Selina was interviewed by Graham Millar and Gail Miller at 3pm on 21 April 2010. She officially must have been extremely convincing, because at 9am the following day when they interviewed me, they didn't even mention Selina to me. But they felt so strongly about her evidence that they felt it merited a deviation from normal disciplinary procedure, and they included conclusions in their report; one of which highlighted their serious concerns about my conversation with Selina which had left her "uncomfortable and frightened and as a consequence is now nervous and anxious around him". Selina will have to explain how she went from frightened and anxious to laughing and joking, then back to frightened and anxious. Does she have a mental disorder perhaps?And Mr Toole will have to explain how he was at least 50% sure that she was telling the truth. Does he have a mental disorder perhaps?

Gail and Graham will also have to explain their performance as investigators. How can two investigators both perform so badly? You would think that if one was making a mistake, the other would point it out and correct it. These are both Grade 9 managers. Yet neither of them thought it was important to ask me for my account of the conversations I had with Selina. How convenient!

Selina's defamatory evidence could and should have been caught and stopped long before that point, but Selina now has them, Karen Stark and Mark Toole to thank for the nightmare in which she now finds herself. Not forgetting herself, of course!

The investigator's report is so malicious in its description of me, that I believe it is also defamatory. Mark Toole had promised me a fair and thorough investigation. So why does it not refer to Selina frequently laughing and joking with me? That is an indisputable fact. The investigator's report is only supposed to contain FACTS. But the facts are conspicuous by their absence. Why did the investigators include conclusions when they were not supposed to, and when they were in no position to, not having gathered the facts?

Selina is a bully. She is a special type of bully who bullies a certain type of individual. She targets people who are already targets of other bullies. This is called mobbing. She attacks people who are already weakened by the damage caused by other bullies.

People can be categorised by how they react to witnessing someone being attacked; for example a rape or assault victim. Some people will walk on by because they don't want to get involved. Some people will try to rescue the victim, even though it may put themselves in danger. They might not have thought it through before acting, but their instinct tells them that they should rescue the victim. Selina belongs to the third group. She 'smells blood' and wants to join in on the kill.

I can understand the first two types of people, but for the life of me, I can't understand the third. And apparently they are not rare. It frightens me. But it makes me wonder how these people would feel if they or their loved ones were being attacked, and passers by joined in on the attack. Would they think that was normal and to be expected?

I strongly believe that bullies and people who take part in mobbing must be punished in order to deter the next set of would be bullies. It is probably one of the most important things in the world today. Ideally it should be covered by systems of justice. If not, then what options do victims of bullies have?

Maybe that's a question we should ask Selina. What would she see as an appropriate and proportionate punishment for her behaviour that would deter others from copying her behaviour?

Alternatively, we could ask the victim what would be an appropriate and proportionate punishment.

However, the bully and the target are both emotionally involved, and are possibly not the best judges of appropriate punishment. Perhaps an independent judge could consider the punishments suggested by both the target and the bully, and decide which one of the two is more justified.

I spoke of how I considered Selina to be a friend, because that's how she presented herself to me face to face. Ironically, it was during our private conversation around January or February 2010 that I confided in her the toll that Kathy's bullying had taken on my health. She appeared sympathetic and genuinely concerned about my health, saying that I needed to look after myself. It was all an act. She was simply gathering and making up dirt on me to feed to her bully buddy.

The very last time I was with Selina, we were laughing and joking together when she came to talk to me about her skiing lessons. That was just a few days before I was suspended in March 2010. The next time I will be with Selina, we won't be laughing and joking. I will be cross examining her at the employment tribunal about the statement she gave for the disciplinary investigation, and comparing it with the irrefutable facts that show she lied. Ironically, I expect she will be frightened and anxious.

What I find fascinating about Selina's predicament is how other people have reacted to it. How have our colleagues reacted to it, and in particular, the witnesses? Bullying, scapegoating and mobbing had made the team become dysfunctional. But in a team of 16, you would expect some 'normal' people not to be effected by it. What are their thoughts on this? What about Selina's husband? Has she told him? Did she lie to him too? What about her parents and her sister? What will she tell her kids when they come home from school having learned from their friends that she is a bully who lied to get an innocent man sacked?

The investigators' performance in the process was horrendous. It will look terrible to the tribunal who will not be fooled for a second that it was ever meant to be genuine, especially since there were two of them at such a senior level. Even worse for the uni is that when I received their report, I wrote to Mark Toole several times saying that it was obviously a sham, and I pleaded with him to carry out a proper investigation. He simply ignored my pleas which I copied to the Occupational Therapy doctor. He knew that I was already suffering from stress and that this was making it a whole lot worse. And remember, I had just a few weeks earlier made a protected disclosure to the Principal informing her that the uni was failing in its duty of care. And Mark will have to explain how he could possibly have been happy with the investigation, such as it was. All of this means that it is likely to greatly increase the compensation I receive, and it will draw attention to the corrupt nature of senior management. The uni wishes to challenge my reinstatement. It might be that they won't be able to afford not to reinstate me. Their lawyer drew the tribunal's attention to their limited resources on Wednesday. To top it all, the university had known that their actions had caused me to become suicidal. I had discussed it with Occupational Therapy. It couldn't look much worse for the uni. I would be surprised if it didn't make the national news. This could even become one of the UK's landmark cases.

Then I may also have to seek damages from the individuals who chose to defame me. This may include Gibb, MacDonald, O'Neil, Forsyth, McCabe, Stark, Schofield, Toole, Kemp, Millar and Miller.

From Selina's statement, I now see that she said that she had told a colleague about the alleged frightening conversation. It was her colleague who informed Eileen MacDonald.

To be continued...

Digital Recordings

I have sent Stirling University's lawyers sound recordings that support my assertion that a number of colleagues have told porky pies.

One of the recordings includes a conversation I had with Selina Gibb. One contains a discussion that includes David Black. One includes a conversation I had with Una Forsyth. One includes a conversation with Kathy McCabe.

I have written transcripts of the recordings, and the university accepts that they are accurate. They do not, however, accept that the voices belong to the people I say they belong to. They say that they do not want the individuals concerned to hear them in order to confirm that it is them. This makes it more likely that I will have to call them as witnesses to be cross examined.

Peter Kemp - Lying bully supporter

Peter Kemp, 10 Finlay Rise, Milngavie, Glasgow, G62 6EQ

Peter joined the university around the same time as me in 1997, but up until 2008, he would walk past me in the corridor without saying hello. He wasn't being rude; he just didn't know who I was, even though I held a senior position in his department. It's a pity it didn't stay that way because I found the interactions I had with him to be very frustrating. I could never work out for sure whether he was exceedingly stupid or if he was just pretending to be. Finally, I discovered it was all a pretence, and he's just a liar who, for whatever reason, supports bullies.

One of the things I complained to him about was Kathy McCabe criticising me in relation to matters where it would have been more appropriate to have thanked me. Peter ended up doing exactly the same thing in order to support Kathy and Eileen MacDonald. He also slagged off a well respected colleague who nobody, apart from Kathy, has ever said a bad word against.

When I first submitted a grievance against Kathy, Peter arranged mediaton for us. The mediation was almost completely useless because Kathy simply refused to participate properly. However there was one good thing to come from it; at least in theory. I had raised the matter of Kathy criticising me inappropriately, and I said that the cause of it was Kathy listening to gossip. She had even admitted to doing so when she criticised me about something she claimed she overheard in the corridor from nameless people. At mediation, Kathy agreed that, in future, when anyone complained to her about me, she was to get it in writing, then send it to me and ask for my response, and then hold a meeting with me and the complainant. For most managers, that would be the natural thing to do, but Kathy had to be persuaded by a mediator.

Just three weeks later, Kathy forwarded a complaint to me that she had received from Eileen MacDonald. At last it was confirmed that it had been Eileen who had been filling Kathy's head with nonsense about me. Although I spent huge amounts of time helping Eileen with her work, she had been jealous of me because I had been promoted. I was a man in a team dominated by women, and there was resentment that I was in a higher grade.

I was delighted to receive the complaint. Eileen was claiming that I was a poor teamworker, and that I was confrontational. However, the truth is that these were terms that described Eileen herself. At mediation, I had explained this to Kathy. I had also explained that Eileen had a very weak understanding of technical matters, and that she wasn't interested in improving. Kathy just denied this, claiming that Eileen had strong technical skills. That was either a lie, or it was based on work she thought Eileen had done, but which was actually done by me or someone else.

I replied to Kathy and included lots of evidence that it was Eileen who was the problem. As Database Administrator, I was responsible for database security, and for two years Eileen had been breeching security procedures and encouraging others to do so too. It's a sackable offense in most employers, but rather than report it, I tried to persuade Eileen not to do it. I had tried to find out from her why she was doing it. I had written to her a number of times explaining the correct procedure, and I said that if she felt there was ever a need to step outside the procedures, she should let me know, and I would work out what the problem was. I couldn't possibly have been more helpful, but the only reason she was doing it was to be bloody minded.

On this occasion, she had told one of her employees to breech security procedures and to log on to a database using an account that wasn't her own. I spotted this, and phoned her up to ask her to log off. Her employee agreed to log off, but Eileen told her to ignore me. After ten minutes I saw that she was still logged on, so I disconnected her. I then spent time helping them with the problem they were having, which was of Eileen's own making.

Realising that it was Eileen (Kathy's favourite) who was to blame, Kathy immediately cancelled the meeting. I submitted grievances againt Kathy and Eileen to Peter. Eileen found out and was worried about the grievance. Peter told her not to worry and that she was doing a good job. He completely ignored my grievance, and Mark Toole ignored it too. In fact, Mark criticised me for submitting it.

In her complaint, Eileen had asked for the database security procedures to be changed, and I had confirmed to Kathy that the problem wasn't with the procedures, but that Eileen, allegedly a Senior Programmer, needed to improve her skills. As a manager, Kathy should have tried to find out from Eileen what the real problem was and then spoken to me if she thought it was something I could help with. Instead, Kathy wrote to the entire team instructing us to debate whether or not the procedures should be changed to suit Eileen's preferred way of working. This was simply bullying by undermining me. I wrote to Peter Kemp to complain. To take the heat off Kathy, Peter said that it was he who had instructed Kathy to send that email. He went on to say that he would be asking for a report from the debate. He acknowledged the fact that I had to demonstrate to auditors that the correct security procedures were followed, but added that it was important that people are able to carry out their duties.

This was insulting, not just to me, but to the auditors too. Firstly he was implying that I was so stupid that I didn't know that people needed to be able to carry out their duties. He was also implying that I was so bad at administrating databases that I had set up a procedure that prevented employees from carrying out their duties. I wrote back to him confirming that everybody was indeed able to carry out their duties. It was an absurd situation where the Director of Information Services for a university was considering adding risk to data security for no other reason than to show support for Eileen MacDonald; a bully.

The team had the debate, and thankfully nobody wanted the procedures changed. During the meeting, I was explaining a technical matter when Eileen, who really needed to be listening, repeatedly heckled me with "You're inconsistent! You're inconsistent!" I asked her what was inconsistent, and she said that security was different on the XYZ database. She was referring to a different type of database for which I had no responsibility, and which was the responsibility of Paul, an employee that she managed. You would think that when you make a fool of yourself as often as Eileen, you would learn to keep your mouth shut.

Peter was interviewed as part of the grievance investigation. He gave his full support to Kathy and Eileen. He described me as someone who just doesn't understand that sometimes procedures have to be changed to allow people to carry out their duties. Of course, Peter had already learned from me that everybody could carry out their duties within existing procedures, but he would also have received his report confirming that everybody was able to carry out their duties. I don't think Peter will be happy until students are able to access the databases and amend their own grades.

Karen Stark was aware of all this as she was included in the correspondence. She carefully avoided raising this with Peter during the interview. A good question would have been "Please describe a situation whereby an employee could not carry out their duties within the agreed security procedures." Answer "Well there might be an occasion where a bloody minded woman could decide that it's just not her style, and that she is special and needs to be treated differently from everyone else. Obviously the security of the University of Stirling's data is nowhere near as important as that woman's feelings of superiority."

How stupid of me and the auditors not to have spotted that flaw in the security procedures!

I wonder if Peter ever told his wife, Joan what he really got up to at work.





He describes me as demanding that things are done my own way. Anybody attending meetings in our team would know that I was the one who would rarely even offer advice, because I knew it would be ignored. I was merely trying to ensure that the University's security procedures were followed correctly. That was my job. The person who was out of step with the university and the team by insisting she do things her own way was Eileen MacDonald.

Peter obsessively defends Kathy who obsessively defends Eileen. So the person who was proving to be the biggest risk to security was being put in charge of security; just like putting a lunatic in charge of the asylum. Meanwhile I'm criticised for merely carrying out my job with great patience. Peter says that I don't understand that the job has to be done, but the only person being prevented from doing their job was me.

Peter then claims that he didn't know why I was off sick for five weeks in 2008, despite the fact that I had written a lengthy letter to him explaining it was due to Kathy's behaviour, and when he received it he arranged mediation for me and Kathy.

Then he slags off a well respected colleague, and in stereotypical fashion he slags off people whom he sees as good programmers.

Selina Gibb

Selina Gibb, Riverbank Lodge, Auchinlay Rd, Dunblane, FK15 9BF

This is the statement that Selina made to Investigators Graham Millar and Gail Miller. Later, when they interviewed me, they made no reference to anything she had said. Nor did they tell me that she had been interviewed.


Section 3. Selina, to her shame, has completely misrepresented a private conversation we had in the office.

He came over to my desk at the other end of the office, which I found very strange as we don't have a close working relationship, and asked if I'd heard about the KM situation. I was on my way to fetch drinking water from the tea room which means exiting through a door acrosss the room from where Selina sits. She asked me why I wasn't at the Developers' meeting. I said that I was working on my grievance against Kathy. Selina said she hadn't known about it and asked if it was because of the email that Kathy had sent the team about conference attendance. I said that was part of it. She asked if it was true that I had emails that I'd sent Kathy asking to attend. (Kathy had falsely claimed in her email that I'd never asked to attend a conference). I said yes. Selina said that was weird. I added that I also had some of her acknowledgements. Selina said that was really weird. I said that Kathy had been ill treating me for years, and then I left the room to get some water. When I returned, Selina asked how it all began. I said I wasn't sure but I suspected that Eileen was involved because I knew that she had misrepresented my performance in an email she sent Kathy. I also told Selina that I'd raised a grievance against Eileen because of this. I said that I thought Eileen was probably the root of the problem. I referred to a time about two weeks earlier when Selina and I were talking as we climbed the stairs together. Selina had noticed that when we reached the top that I was out of breath. She had joked that I was like "an old man". I explained that that was a symptom of the stress caused by bullying. I told her that I drink far too much alcohol and can no longer take exercise. By now Selina had stood up and crossed the room to where I was standing. She said two times, "You need to look after yourself, Allan". She was still standing there as I returned to my seat saying "That's probably the correct thing to say, but it's not that simple." I felt she was genuinely concerned for my health.

He started talking about EM and lost control. I hadn't lost control in any way. This is pure fiction.

His facial expression changed and became very red in the face and really angry and irate. His demeanour seemed quite wild. He was calling her names and said she was the ring leader behind the deterioration of his relationship with KM, was not to be trusted and was malicious and a trouble maker. Pure fiction again. Interestingly, I had never considered that Eileen was a ring leader, however since the orchestrated complaints emerged, I now believe that to be true.

He didn't mention her by name, he just kept pointing at her chair and saying 'her'. The first time I mentioned Eileen's name I pointed at her desk in order to clarify which Eileen I was referring to. There are two Eileens in the team.

I felt really uncomfortable and tried to indicate I wasn't interested by my body language. I would turn to my computer and continue with my work. False. Selina had instigated the conversation twice, and had stood up and crossed the room to get closer to me. As I walked away, she was still standing there. I was mainly responding to her questions.

I didn't want to say anything in case I made him even angrier. He was so angry that he was spitting on my desk. He seemed to be going around in circles in the actual content of what he was saying. Selina hadn't said anything to make me angry, and I wasn't angry. I had no reason to be angry with Selina. There was no going around in circles. The conversation was fairly brief, and I wanted to get back to what I was doing. I didn't spit on her desk. We were at the other side of the room, and I wasn't angry.

Section 12. Does this sound like someone who is nervous, frightened and anxious around me? Selina came to me one day soon after that conversation to ask me about skiing lessons, and we laughed as I described my own experience as a beginner and being the only adult in the class. The reason she is not anxious and nervous is because she misrepresented our conversation.

Even on the day of the grievance hearing (26 Feb), Selina and Una were both laughing and joking with me as I left the office to go home early. Selina was joking about me wearing what she refers to as my "dancing shoes".

Sections 6 and 7 are also false and are explained in the Disciplinary Investigation post. LINK.

Section 8. I do feel he enjoys upsetting people. He may have issues with females and tries to pull you down. False, and clear collusion with the other complainants. For 13 years there's no complaint about me having issues with females, then suddenly there's a batch of them immediately following three of them being spoken to about their ill treatment of me, and one of them being spoken to about having screamed at me a few days before. As described elsewhere, there's no way in the world I'd have upset Selina.

Section 10. This paragraph describes another symptom of poor management in IS Services at Stirling, and particularly my own team. It is also a perfect example of how I am seen as the scapegoat. Let me try to explain this. Selina's background is in clerical work. She worked in our team in a clerical role. Then Kathy McCabe created a new job as a System Assistant which requires a level of technical skills. The role evaluation form that Kathy signed states that five years Oracle experience is required for the job. Firstly, that in itself is nonsense because it is a fairly junior role which doesn't require anything like that. Secondly, when Selina took up the post, she had no Oracle experience. Selina is on friendly terms with Eileen MacDonald and Kathy McCabe, and I was told that she got the job for that reason, and that employees from other teams who were interested in the job were prevented from applying. Thirdly, at the time of the incident that Selina is referring to (albeit incorrectly), she still had no Oracle experience. Selina was in the job for five or six years when I recently set her up with some Oracle training materials. So although she is in a Grade 6 role which has potential full time earnings over £28,000, she is basically carrying out a clerical role. There are employees in other teams on Grade 6 with specialist skills and who can work on their own initiative. Try finding a clerical job in the real world that pays over £28,000.

I have 15 years Oracle experience. On the one hand my colleagues recognise that experience by constantly coming to me for help. However, I felt I was constantly under suspicion as someone who didn't know what I was talking about. At times I'd explain something to a Programmer, and they wouldn't accept what I was saying because they were thinking that I was in some way being devious or difficult. So I'd have to call over another senior member of staff to get them to confirm that what I said was correct. This example with Selina is even more stark. She has somehow learned through gossip, probably from Eileen MacDonald (who is also very weak technically and a saboteur), that I'm difficult and that I'm a nitpicker. So a very inexperienced, completely non technical, clerical worker makes a judgement that I, a Database Administrator with 15 years experience and responsibility for the security of the University's databases am just nitpicking.

Let me describe what happened. As I said, Selina had no technical experience at all, but somebody gave her a technical task to do. Since it was the first time she had attempted this, I would have expected her to have been supervised because the consequences of what she was doing were potentially very serious. She was requesting me to run programs in the live student records database which would delete some records. We have a procedure in place for this for efficient and secure completion of work.
1 Requester writes the programs using SQL. As I said, Selina had no knowledge of SQL.
2 Requester runs the programs in test database to ensure it works. I'll explain later how I know that Selina couldn't have done this.
3 Requester completes a form giving the DBAs instructions for running the programs.
4 Requester sends email to DBAs with a link to those instructions.
5 Requester places programs in specific folder for DBAs to run them.
6 DBA runs programs
7 DBA records in form that program has been run.
8 DBA moves programs to another folder

And here's what happened.

4 Selina created three forms when only one was required.
She sent me the email with three links. The links didn't work, I asked her to fix them, and copied to her more experienced colleague. Instead she sent the forms as attachments to the DBAs. This is a problem because it now means there are two copies of each form.
5a The programs were not where they should have been. So Selina had another go.
5b This time two of the programs were in place, but one was still missing.
6 I checked the programs, and only half of each program was there. For example, a program should say "DELETE FROM students WHERE student = 1". Selina's programs said "WHERE student = 1". If she had sent the other half "DELETE FROM students" instead, and I had run it, all of the records in the table would have been deleted. That would be very serious because the software suppliers don't like us deleting records unless we use the application they have supplied us, and they've told us they won't provide any support if we mess up. Obviously these programs couldn't have been run in the test database because they wouldn't have worked and would have produced an error. Eventually we got that sorted out, but then there were more problems because the other DBA began running and moving the programs too because he had separate forms.

I emailed Selina saying "Sorry Selina but the files don't seem to be there. Can you maybe ask Una or Eileen to help". She replied calling me "patronising". I reply "Not patronising at all. I was merely concerned that after three attempts, we were still having difficulties." Selina again says that I was patronising, to which I take offense.

We were in a complete mess, but she thinks I'm nitpicking and patronising! And again, her story has grown arms and legs.

Compare that with Kathy who criticised me in the presence of Mark Toole and others for not having replied to an email (that I hadn't seen) within 23 minutes. Her email invited me to a meeting which I attended when a colleague pointed it out to me on her way to the meeting. When we arrived, we had to hang around waiting for someone else who hadn't seen Kathy's email. THAT is nitpicking!





It's really sickening that someone I loved like a daughter could make up lies to take away my livelihood. She did it in collusion with others, not realising that there was evidence to show that they were lying. Selina had everything she could wish for; a husband and three beautiful daughters that she adored; a big house; a very good salary for easy work. Everybody loved her. If anybody was to carry out research into mobbing, then they should definitely interview Selina to find out why she did this after seeming to be genuinely concerned for my health.

I'd be happy for Selina and me to undertake polygraph tests to determine which of us is being honest. However, emails that I've published demonstrate Selina's dishonesty.

As at 22 June 2011, this is the most frequently visited post on my blog.

Please see my post that relates to the dangers of gossip which features Selina.

To be continued...

Disciplinary Investigation

See Timeline and Personnel

Gail Miller, Linton, Kilbryde Crescent, Dunblane, FK15 9BB

Graham Millar, 24 Tipperary Place, Stenhousemuir, LARBERT, FK5 4SX

While I was awaiting the decision on my grievance against Kathy McCabe, a number of colleagues colluded and went to HR with malicious complaints about me. This was because I had made genuine complaints against two of them which were still to be actioned, and so it was in their interest to get rid of me. The complaints they came up with were unbelievable, but that didn't seem to matter to Mark Toole. He carried out an informal investigation with these complainants, and then arranged a formal investigation. I was suspended during the investigation which Mark said would be "fair and thorough". With me suspended, it gave the complainants more time to get their story straight, but they didn't realise that there was already evidence that refuted the story that they had invented.

The Disciplinary Procedure states that investigators should be drawn from a different department. That would have meant MT would have lost some control, so he decided to ignore that instruction, and appointed Gail Miller and Graham Millar, whom he manages, to investigate. Another reason Graham should not have been chosen was because of a close relationship he enjoys with one of the complainants. For several years, Graham's team didn't invite him to their nights out, because they objected to the way he had treated a former colleague. So he came to my team's nights out instead. He was regularly seen with his arm around Una Forsyth's shoulders and waist. My girlfriend had noticed this too. I was surprised to learn recently that he is married, because I always assumed he must be single from the way he behaved with Una. He doesn't seem to mind making public displays of affection for her. During her interview with Graham, Una was reported to have been "visibly upset" while she explained that I allegedly had a soft spot for her and had hoped to get together with her while she was still married five years ago. Graham would have been aware that Una's marriage had broken up eight years ago, and that shortly afterwards she was in a relationship for roughly four years with a man called Ricky from Edinburgh. Graham also worked closely with Eileen MacDonald when they were interviewing job applicants just before the investigation began.

Gail and Graham interviewed each of the complainants, and then they interviewed me. At the time I was interviewed, I didn't know what the complaints were or even who was complaining about me. I was just told that the investigation was into me bullying colleagues, including bullying based on gender, and inappropriate behaviour. Graham asked me to talk about my relationships with my colleagues, and wouldn't say what the complaints were about. By denying me any details of the complaints, Graham would have hoped that I wouldn't be able to refute them.

Unknown to me, much of what I said conflicted with what the complainants had said in their statements. However that didn't seem to surprise Graham who was, of course, aware of the inconsistencies. For example, Una had falsely claimed that for four years she had avoided contact with me. She and the other complainants (all women) had come up with the story that I am a man who has a problem with women, that I delay responding to work requests from women, and that I only got on well with 2 out of the 11 women in the team. However, I got on well with all but two team members, Kathy and Eileen Mac. Without me knowing about Una's false claims, I mentioned that she had recently invited me to be her friend on Facebook, that she regularly collected the lottery syndicate money on my behalf, that she had recently cooked me a meal, and confided in me that she didn't want to be line managed by Eileen anymore, and that she frequently came to me for help, even on matters that were not covered by my role, because I'm very obliging and helpful. Despite the obvious difference in evidence, Graham chose not to interview Una again to ask her to explain the difference, nor did he tell me what Una had said.

Selina Gibb had made up a similar account of her relationship with me, and Graham didn't tell me about that either. I saw no reason to mention Selina because we had been good friends for about 10 years. It is worth noting that it is a very serious disciplinary matter to make malicious complaints.

Mark told me he selected Graham because he was an experienced investigator, but his performance suggests otherwise. For example, when he interviewed Una, she gave inconsistent statements, but he didn't ask her to explain. She had told him that I'd added her as a friend on Facebook, but he's an IT expert and knows that you can't do that without first being invited. He didn't ask about this. She said that she collected the lottery money for me, but he didn't ask why she did this if she avoided contact with me.

In addition, Una made statements that were simply screaming out for further questioning. She said that I made one woman's (LM's) life a misery, but nothing else was said or asked about this allegation. Surely a genuine Investigator would have asked for details of how I'd done this, and asked if my manager was informed of it, etc. I see no genuine value in an investigation, if someone can make such a serious allegation, and not explain it. Again, I was not asked about that woman during my interview with the investigators.

Following the investigation, Gail and Graham produced a report. The Disciplinary Procedure states that it is not the role of the Investigator to come to conclusions, but Graham included conclusions in his report which, despite the fact that I had given evidence that refuted the claims of the complainants, were based entirely on their statements. This included his conclusion relating to a private conversation I was alleged to have had with Selina. I don't think it is possible to come to a conclusion about a private conversation until you hear it from both parties. For all the investigators knew, the conversation might not have taken place at all. There was indeed a conversation, however Selina had given a false account of it, saying that I had frightened and alarmed her by losing control, becoming so wild that my face was red and I was spitting on her desk, and that she wasn't interested in what I was saying to her. She alleged that following that conversation, she was anxious and nervous around me. The investigators didn't ask why she had waited two months before reporting this alleged incident that had made her so anxious to be around me. If the investigators had asked me about it, I would have been able to refer to occasions following that very innocent conversation when Selina was laughing and joking with me. In fact the last time I was with Selina, we were both laughing and joking, and there's evidence to support that fact.

I believe that the reason Graham didn't put any of these allegations to me was that he and Mark already knew that they were all false, and they didn't want any facts to get in the way and prevent them from coming to the required conclusions. This didn't quite go to plan though, because when I was interviewed, I unwittingly referred to facts that refuted the allegations. This didn't prove a major problem for the investigators though, because they could simply ignore the facts. After all, they weren't on a fact finding mission, they were on a mission to help Mark get rid of me. After I was interviewed, Gail wrote to me to say that they were considering removing parts of my statement. That seemed odd to me at the time, and I can only think that it was because I had managed to refute the false complaints, and rather than having to ignore parts of my statement, they would have preferred that my statement didn't include them in the first place.

Jackie O'Neil had been interviewed and she talked about an incident that I also discussed at my interview. Her account was very different to mine, but we both stated that colleague David Black was a very close witness. Any "fair and thorough" investigation would have had to include asking David for his account. Once again, Graham carefully avoided that because Mark knew that my account was true. I had referred to a document that was available that would have refuted Jackie's account, but Graham didn't investigate that either. The Disciplinary Procedure also states that evidence that doesn't fit the Investigators' understanding should not be ignored. Clearly Graham's report does just that.

The Investigator's report is supposed to detail the facts established by the investigation, and no recommendations or judgments should be made. However, the facts are conspicuous by their absence. Having read the report, it is difficult to think of a genuine reason for having interviewed me at all, other than to allow them to say they've done it. It doesn't refer to anything I've said. So the Investigators have made a judgement to ignore my evidence, preferring to base their findings and conclusions on the statements from the complainants which were already known to be unreliable.






Section 19. The investigators did not question me about this. Roughly seven team members were in the tea room. Selina was standing opposite me, leaning over a chair. From where I was sitting it looked as though she had a pregnancy bump. This triggered some vague memory that I'd heard that she was pregnant, and I asked "Are you pregnant again?" Selina laughed as she said "No! That's not something you should ask a woman, Allan." I said "Sorry!", then added, "but didn't you tell me you were pregnant?" She looked puzzled as she said "No". She then stood up straight, and I could see that it was just that she was wearing a baggy top, and I pointed that out. I made no mention of her "weight" whatsoever. She hadn't just returned from maternity leave. She had returned almost a year previously. She did not leave the room until we all left the room. She had sent me the email below as a joke two months earlier, but I hadn't seen the punchline at the bottom of the email. There was absolutely no intention to insult or embarrass Selina. Selina and Jackie have colluded to make this into something sinister. It was never mentioned again, and was not reported until this investigation took place. Selina and I remained on very good terms right up to my suspension, as can be seen in emails she sent me. She also made a very innocent private conversation we had sound very sinister. Did she do this of her own free will, or was she pressurised? Well, she hasn't told me of any pressure, so I can only assume she chose to do it herself.

Section 18. I was not questioned about any of this. The allegation that I hoped to get together with Una while she was married five years ago is not only false, it is impossible. Her marriage broke up eight years ago. Graham Millar would have known this as he has a very close relationship with Una.

I have never made any comment to Jackie about her shape. However, the bullying has had a serious effect on my health and my weight for two reasons; my alcohol intake has increased massively, and I can no longer take part in sports which I used to do daily, and I no longer go dancing. On two occasions at the beginning of 2010, Jackie came over to the area of my desk and, in her loud voice, mentioned that I was getting fat, and that I should get back into training. Although I wasn't offended, Jackie wouldn't have cared if I was. Her main motivation I believe was to bring to the attention of everyone else around us that she was in training.

Section 21. I was not questioned about any of this. I did, however raise the topic of Eileen's and Jackie's poor technical performance. I did not say that this is because I deem them to be technically inferior to me. That sounds very much like a dishonest and somewhat immature criticism of me; and certainly not a fact that the investigators are supposed to establish. Part of my job is to provide technical training and advice to Programmers. When interviewed, I gave my view (as I have given to my manager before) that Eileen's and Jackie's technical performance falls well below what I would expect from a Programmer and a Senior Programmer with the years of experience that they've had in the job, and with the training and help I and others have given them. The problem is not that they don't match me technically, but that they don't match Programmers with just months of experience. They do not respond to training and advice given, and I showed ample evidence of this. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that they have never had any real desire to improve their technical skills, and worse, both have caused problems because they have arrogantly acted upon their mistaken belief that they are technically superior to me. Added to that, Jackie has screamed at me several times because she thinks I'm technically inferior to her. That is a symptom of poor management. Just days before I was suspended, Eileen wrote to me with a question that most Trainee Programmers would know the answer to by the end of their first day at work. Eileen is a Senior Programmer with ten years experience. While that may sound like a massive exaggeration, I assure you it is not. As usual, I answered as if it was a perfectly normal question. Eileen's and Jackie's roles both pay in excess of £40,000 a year full time.

I offered Graham Millar and Gail Miller an opportunity to respond to this statement on 30th August 2010. I also asked if there was anything I've said that they disagree with. I have not received a reply.

Background

See Timeline and Personnel

I joined the University in May 1997 as a Progammer Analyst. At that time, Kathy wasn't my manager. We got on okay, but I could see that she was a very angry person and was dissatisfied with her role and with the way the department was run. She would often send very aggressive emails to people in other teams and copy me in on them even though they had nothing to do with me. A local company held an open day to invite people with IT skills to consider working for them. Kathy attended and persuaded me and JSS to attend even though we were happy with our jobs. It appeared to me that Kathy wanted to create problems for the team. Not long afterwards, my manager left and was replaced by Kathy. I saw an immediate change in her attitude in that she became far more professional and positive. I was very impressed by her at that time, however I noted that she was still very critical of the men in the team apart from me. Those men were more senior to me, and they had known her longer.

After 18 months service, I took up the post of Database Administrator (DBA), but although this had been a grade 3 post, I remained on grade 2 for two years. I met with Kathy to ask that I be promoted to grade 3. She refused, and I said that I would probably have to look around for another job because with the experience I had I could easily have found another job that both paid more and was also closer to home. At first she threatened to have me dismissed. Later during the same meeting, she agreed to promote me to grade 3. I was suspicious of her sudden change of decision, and I asked what caused it. She just said that I had persuaded her that I was worth the increase. Kathy has promoted five women, but has never required any of them to work for two years in their new role in a lower grade. During her grievance interview, Kathy said that I was a Trainee DBA. This was completely false and could easily have been checked out. indeed I checked it out with HR myself, and they confirmed that I was a DBA.

The DBA workload had increased significantly. The number of databases had increased from three to around 25. I also had to provide a lot of technical support for an SAP system that had been introduced, and I still had programming responsibilities. A big factor in my workload was time I had to spend helping Programmers with their work. This had not been part of the role for the previous DBA because at that time the Programmers were fully competent, but the number of Programmers had increased, and some were brought into the team with very little programming experience, and some of those had little desire to learn to be programmers. Kathy had brought them in for personal rather than professional reasons. This meant that I ended up doing a large proportion of their work too. I had been working on average an extra 15 unpaid hours every week. (This was a situation that continued for almost 7 years). Eileen MacDonald and Jackie O'Neil in particular required a considerable amount of my time. For a long time Kathy would not have been aware that I was having to spend so much of my time doing their work because there was no process for me to bring it to her attention. At that time I worked largely unsupervised.

With me doing a large proportion of their work, one would expect that Eileen and Jackie would be grateful, but that was not the case. Jackie is very aggressive, and she would often shout at me, even though she would be in the wrong about what she was shouting about. She had even shouted at the previous DBA when he had offered to do her a personal favour but hadn't done it in the time she would have liked. Eileen seemed much more friendly, however I later discovered that to be false, and that she was gossiping about me behind my back. Now I realise that while I was doing their work for them, Eileen and Jackie were going to Kathy and gossiping about me and misleading her about my performance.

At an appraisal meeting in 2003, Kathy was very happy with my work, but she said she would like me to be more assertive with the Programmers so that they would gain maximum benefit from my knowledge and experience. It must have been clear to her that I lack assertiveness and that some of the Programmers were ignoring my advice to them. It's odd that the Programmers would not hesitate to come to me for help, but they were much less receptive to my advice. Often I'd find myself providing help that would not have been required had they not ignored my advice.

At my next appraisal meeting in 2005, Kathy's attitude changed and I could not have expected what she was about to say. She asked me if I thought I was the best employee in the team, which I took to mean that she thought I was very arrogant. I said I did not. Ever since I joined the Uni, I have sung the praises of my colleague, JSS. I have always considered her to be a genius. Kathy knew this, so there seemed no logical reason for her question. Kathy then said that I had become unapproachable. I assured her that that was not the case, and that I was regularly being approached by colleagues, and that the reason they did so was because I would stop what I was doing and help them right away to prevent them from being held up. Kathy then said that I lacked visibility. Again I said that this was incorrect, and that I was frequently in the company of colleagues, and that at times there had been queues forming in my room with colleagues wanting help from me. I asked her what she meant, and she said that she rarely saw me in room 2b30, which was a room occupied by Programmers. I told her that I don't avoid that room, but that it was more common for Programmers to come to see me in my room and that I would work at my PC to investigate their problems. In reality, I would have been in that room far more often than Kathy, and this was not a genuiune explanation for her criticism. I felt I had sufficiently explained that there was no reason for concern, and she was unwilling or unable to come up with any tangible reasons for saying these things. However, she included them in my appraisal report. I was very disappointed, and for several days I considered what to do about it. In the end, I decided not to do anything.

Then I noticed the change in Kathy's behaviour towards me, and in December 2006, I plucked up the courage to meet with her to try to find out what it was all about. I told her that it was causing me a great deal of stress. I talked about my appraisal report, and asked her if someone had made a complaint about me being unapproachable. She denied it, and amazingly said that it was just something she had overheard in the corridor. Then she said it wasn't a problem anymore. So I was left wondering if she had heard that in the corridor too. I explained to her about Jackie spreading false rumours about me, but she denied she had heard them. I told her that Jackie had come to me one day demanding that I fix a database problem, and I had to explain to her that it was not a database problem, and what she would have to do to resolve her problem. Jackie became aggressive, shouted at me and slammed the door as she left. She then went back to her room and phoned the software vendors. She angrily described me as "our useless DBA" to them. They told her exactly the same as I told her to resolve her problem. Kathy said she was not intereseted in such things because she thinks her staff should resolve such matters between themselves. I told her that I believed she was receiving false reports about me from my colleagues. Kathy had also lied to me at this meeting in order to try to cover up her behaviour towards me. I told her that I wanted it to stop. She goaded me by suggesting that I bring a complaint of harassment if I wasn't happy. She was obviously confident that management would support her, and she was absolutely correct.

In February 2008, I was suffering from stress due to Kathy's bullying as well as another work related issue which was role evaluation. Kathy met with me and suggested I visit the Occupational Health Department. I said I'd think about it. She said that if I didn't refer myself, she would refer me. I decided not to.

She met with me again and said that she was going to refer me to OH. I said that I didn't think that would be helpful, and that I just needed the two things that were causing the stress to be resolved, and reminded her that I'd asked her to stop ill treating me and that she hadn't. I informed her that if it continued then I would have to raise a grievance. She denied any knowledge of me having discussed this with her previously.

I was referred to OH, and I discussed the issues with the doctor. The doctor agreed with me that there was no medical or councelling solution to my problem, and he stated in his report that the University should take me more seriously. Later I received a copy of the letter of referral and discovered that Kathy had lied about me in order to make me appear as though I was some mad man. It included a false claim that I had been aggressive with staff. When I saw this, I became extremely stressed and required five weeks sick leave. It had been about 8 years since I last missed a day's work. I'd never needed to see a doctor in over 20 years.

When I returned to work, Kathy's behaviour was extremely odd, and again she was dishonest. I feel sure that Karen Stark was in some way caught up in this too.

When I was off sick, my doctor gave me a cerificate, and then I needed another one, so I tried to make another apoointment to see him. His receptionist said there was no need for me to see him, and that she would get him to leave a certificate for me to collect. Then I needed another certificate, and when I phoned, the receptionist said the same again. However, when I arranged to collect the certificate, the receptionist said that the doctor wanted to see me first, and made an appointment for 8th May. The doctor had emphasised that it was important for me to return to work as soon as I felt able. My certificate had run out, and so I returned to work on 6th May with the plan that I would collect my certificate on the 8th. When I returned to work, Kathy called me to her office and said I had to return home until I had permission from the doctor to return. I explained that the doctor had wanted me back as soon as I felt able and that my certificate had run out, but she insisted I was to go home.

Prior to me returning to work, I had been in regular contact with Karen Stark telling her what was happening. I told her about the appointment arranged for 8th, but that I intended to return earlier if possible. She said nothing to suggest I shouldn't. I had also been in regular contact with the Departmental Secretary (JH). I told JH that I was likely to return before seeing the doctor too. She replied saying that she thought that the regulations didn't allow it. She quoted a sentence from the Sickness and Absence Procedure that said that if you wish to return to work before your certificate runs out, you must first get approval from your doctor. JH must have told KM that she had told me this. I replied to JH saying that my circumstances were different because my certificate had already run out. I could tell that JH was acting on her own initiative and was just being thoughtful and helpful, but she later followed up by apologising as it may have seemed that she was telling me what to do. I replied saying that that was not the case and thanked her for her concern.

Karen wrote to me asking me to obtain proof that my doctor had instructed me to return to work as soon as I felt able. My doctor agreed to provide this information to Karen on request. He also agreed to confirm that there was no medical solution to my health problem, and that my health would naturally improve once the problems at work were solved. I wrote to Karen to give her permission to contact my doctor and ask about these points, but she chose not to.

On 8th May, I returned to work for the second time, and Kathy arranged a return to work meeting with me by email. She said that I could bring a colleague with me if I so wished, but I didn't. I just wanted the meeting to be as short as possible and private. When I arrived at her office, Kathy noted that I was alone, and said she would go and get Eric Hall to join us. I protested and said I didn't want anyone to join us because I considered it to be a private matter. She insisted that someone else be present, so I went and asked JSS if she would join us. I told her what had happened, and she agreed to join us.

At the meeting, Kathy asked me how I was. I said that I was still suffering from stress but that I felt well enough to return to work. I added that it had caused me more stress to have been sent home two days earlier. This is when Kathy became very defensive and dishonest and aggressive. She said that I should have known not to return because it says so in the Sickness and Absence Procedures (SAP). I said that I didn't think it did. I added that my doctor had said he thought it was nitpicking to have sent me home. Kathy then printed off a copy of the SAP, and highlighted a sentence on it, and then placed it in front of me on the table. I started to read it, but Kathy continued talking. I asked if she could give me a few seconds to read what she had highlighted. She abruptly refused to let me read it. This is because it was the same sentence that JH had brought to my attention, and Kathy, after highlighting it, now realised that it didn't apply in my case. She said that JH had told me not to return, and I said that JH was not instructing me not to return, but was just being considerate. Kathy then implied that she had instructed JH to tell me not to return. I knew right away that this was false. I said that JH had not known that my certificate had run out. Kathy then threatened me with disciplinary action because I had not returned to work when my certificate had run out. I could see she was now being very aggressive. I told her that I'd explained my circumstances to Karen that I would try to return and that Karen had not discouraged me. Karen works in HR and would have known far better than me. Kathy then falsely claimed that on the 6th I had told her that I did not think I was well enough to return. I was astonished at this claim, and quickly denied it. Kathy then said she was disappointed that I had invited JSS to such a stressful meeting, because JSS was pregnant at he time. I said I hadn't anticipated such a stressful meeting, and I reminded her that I was returning to work after being off for five weeks with stress. I also reminded her that it was she who insisted that I have someone else present. She then denied that she had insisted. SL was a team member who had been off with stress for several months. I asked her if she had forced SL to have someone present at her return to work meeting. She said that it was none of my business as it is a private matter. So I asked her why she should insist that my private matters should be attended by a colleague. Kathy was now beginning to lose the plot, and she accused me of being disrespectful. I told her that it was she who was disrespectful. and I asked her to please not raise her voice at me. She then said she would stop the meeting, and get someone else to attend with me later, but no other meeting was arranged.

Immediately after the meeting, I wrote down everything that had been said, and showed it to JSS. This was because I was going to include it in my informal grievance that I was about to raise. JSS disputed only one thing I'd written. I said that Kathy had claimed to have told JH to instruct me not to return to work. JSS correctly said that Kathy had asked "Did you not stop to think that it was perhaps me who had told JH to tell you not to return?" Even though I knew that JH had told me this on her own initiative, I later asked her face to face, and JH confirmed that Kathy had not told her to tell me. In Kathy's grievance she actually states that she told JH to tell me. Also in her grievance she states that she had to check with Karen on whether or not I was allowed to return to work on 6th. She goes on to say that Karen had to then check with another HR colleague. Yet Kathy was adamant that I, an IT employee, should have known that I wasn't supposed to return.

I completed my 25 page informal grievance which I had begun writing during my sick leave and sent it to Peter Kemp. It gave great detail of Kathy's behaviour towards me over several years. In Kathy's grievance papers, she included an email she had sent to Peter shortly after this in which she tells him that she is going to need his full support on this matter. In his reply, Peter said that he fully understands and supports her position. I was disgusted to see this, as it is my view that he should not have been taking sides on this matter.

Peter offered Kathy and me the services of an external mediator called Liz Law. We both accepted. My girlfriend, Ruth and I spent a total of 7 hours with Liz discussing the mediation process and the background to the problem. She explained that I was to prepare a five minute statement to read to Kathy, and that Kathy would do the same with me. We were then each to ask questions of one another and to ensure the answers were satisfactory. I spent more time preparing for the joint meeting. Then on the day of the meeting, Kathy announced that she had written a letter of complaint to the Uni stating that I had folded my arms during a team meeting, leaned back in my chair, and grunted when saying Good Morning to her. We each read out our statements. This was my statement:

I am glad to have this opportunity of mediation because I would like answers to a number of serious concerns that I have.

When you first became ISD Manager 10 years ago, you took over the management of the Finance project at the same time, and I was very impressed by the way you approached your new roles. Along with Jaana and Brian, you became a hero of mine.

When I became the DBA, I was pleased with the support you gave me, allowing me to make significant changes to the way the team worked, despite my lack of experience.

When my marriage broke up, you kindly invited me to your home at New Year. I was very grateful to you because it would have been a very difficult time for me to be alone.

Since then, however, I feel that things have deteriorated. I had told you a number of times that I felt you were treating me unfairly and that I wanted you to stop because it was causing me stress, but you didn't stop, and I felt I had no option but to make a complaint because your behaviour has damaged me very significantly.

I first recognised that you were treating me unfairly at my last appraisal three years ago, although looking back; I can see that it was happening before then. You abruptly asked me if I thought I was the best person in the team; yet prior to that you had been concerned about my lack of confidence and assertiveness. You said that I was unapproachable, but gave me no explanation why you thought this. About a year later you said that this was because you had overheard someone say this in a corridor. You also said that I lacked visibility with the other team members, but you didn't offer a sensible explanation. Despite me strongly denying that there was any truth in your allegations, you included them in my appraisal report. I felt very hurt and shocked by that, and I need to know why you did it.

In another meeting with David and me, you attacked me again about the "visibility" issue. I felt that this was in retaliation to a suggestion I made to which you had taken offence. You also misrepresented my views at another meeting in relation to this. I need to know what this is all about.

Despite the fact that I have gone to extraordinary lengths to make our team, including you, look good, I feel that you do not treat me with equal respect and dignity that you provide to other team members. I feel that you strongly favour certain team members, especially Eileen MacDonald. This was abundantly clear when I talked with you in February. This makes me feel like a 2nd class person. For example, training courses, conferences, merit awards, system upgrades. Why do you need to do that?

Since I became DBA, there have been many occasions when I have been badly treated by colleagues. I have been shouted at, sworn at, physically assaulted, had a malicious rumour spread about me. I've been told that I wasn't worth the promotion I received. One phoned a supplier and angrily told them I was a "useless DBA". And, Eileen once said she would never speak to me again. I have told you some of these incidents, and you replied saying that you were not interested. I want to know why, as our manager, you were not interested. I feel you have made me the team's scapegoat.

There have been matters relating to me about which you have appeared to be irrationally obsessive. For example, time off in lieu and also the diagram I drew on the whiteboard to help me with my work as a DBA. I feel that your obsessions were due to things colleagues were saying to you, but you were not being entirely frank with me, and indeed you were dishonest with me, and I want to know why.

At one meeting, you strongly denied that I have trained Programmers. I felt offended by that. How did you imagine that Programmers who had been appointed with little or no experience could be producing programs without substantial help from me?

We had a meeting for you to verify the contents of the DBA role outline for framework. Without warning, you had invited Eric to this meeting. The meeting was very confrontational because you aggressively challenged many of the statements included in the form, including three statements that you had typed yourself a few days earlier. Immediately following that meeting, Ruth and I went on holiday, and that holiday was ruined because of the stress I was feeling. I would like to know why you acted in that way.

You completely ignored me at one meeting and laughed at me at another. I felt humiliated. I want to know why you do this.

You have insulted me twice by calling me "patronising". I want to know why you do that.

You also sent me an email, copied to Eric, in which you criticised me. This was in relation to a matter for which an email containing praise would have been far more appropriate. I would like to know why you did that.

You composed a letter referring me to Occupational Health which contained false and serious allegations about me. This was the main reason for me becoming so ill with stress that I required five weeks sick leave. Why did you do that?

You made my Return to Work interview very stressful for me. I felt that you wanted me to suffer more stress to keep me from work longer. Why did you do that?

When Liz asked us to start putting questions to each other, Kathy announced that she would not be answering any questions. She said that if I asked her a question, she would leave the room. Kathy had brought Colin Sinclair, who is her long time friend and colleague, with her as support, and I had brought Ruth with me. I felt that Kathy may have been embarrassed to answer my questions in front of Colin, so I offered to ask them back in the office afterwards, but she refused that too.

My statement contained reference to Kathy's dishonesty. She protested at this, and asked me to withdraw it. The best I could do was to say that she is sometimes dishonest. She didn't like that either. She said that honesty went to the very core of her being. She said that three times, and it didn't gain any credibility with each performance. So I offered to give her examples of where she had been dishonest, but she quickly refused to allow that too. She feigned upset and went to the toilet for ages. Colin said he was surprised that I had said she was dishonest. He said that he had known Kathy for a long time and considered her to be one of the most honest people he'd ever known. At the time I genuinely believed him. I had been a big fan of Colin, and I just assumed that this was a side of Kathy that he didn't know. I later discovered that Colin too was dishonest. When he was interviewed about the mediation during the grievance investigation, he said that Kathy had answered my questions. Of course the investigators didn't ask for any examples of the questions I'd asked.

This was now the third time that Kathy had avoided explaining why she was mistreating me, and it wasn't to be the last. I feel it would have increased her chances of becoming an ex-bully if she were to open up and explain what it is that compels her to do it. It was a wasted, expensive opportunity.

With time running out, Liz tried to create an agreement between Kathy and me. Kathy agreed that if she was to receive any complaints about me, she would let me know about it and arrange a meeting with me and the complainant.

Three weeks later, Eileen MacDonald sent a lengthy email to Kathy complaining about me. She said that I was confrontational and a poor team player. She described an incident that happened the day before, but in a misleading way. I believe Eileen would not have expected Kathy to let me see it. Kathy forwarded her email to me and asked for my comments in advance of a meeting. At last I could see what was happening. Eileen was deliberately giving Kathy a false impression of me, when in fact it was Eileen who was at fault. I replied to Kathy and explained exactly what had happened. Eileen and Una had been deliberately breeching database security procedures several times over a lengthy period and each time I reminded them of the correct procedure. I also asked them to contact me if they ever felt it necessary to breech security procedures, because I knew that it wasn't. The previous day, Eileen had instructed Una to ignore the procedures again and logon to a database using an account that I had explained several times before that they were not to use. From my PC I could see Una logged on. I phoned her and asked her to log off. She agreed to do so, but 10 minutes later when I checked, she was still logged on, so I remotely logged her off myself. During those 10 minutes I'd heard Eileen talking with Una, and it seemed likely that Eileen was telling Una to just ignore me. I also made it clear that it was Eileen who was a poor team player by refusing to answer emails I'd sent her. She had also sent me a very sarcastic email and been very rude to me. I also described an incident from December 2006 when Una had physically assaulted me for no apparent reason, and had refused to explain why she did it.

When Kathy received my email it would have been absolutely clear to her that Eileen was in the wrong because I'd sent her written evidence. Eileen's email had also demonstrated her poor understanding of technical matters. Bizarrely, Kathy replied to me saying that she had only asked for BRIEF comments when in fact she hadn't. She said that because my reply was too long she was cancelling the meeting. She also said that she was going to raise a grievance against me. I immediately raised a formal grievance against Kathy and an informal grievance against Eileen which she passed to Peter. My grievance against Eileen was never processed. In fact Mark Toole has used that grievance as reason to dismiss me. He states that it was insensitive of me to raise a gievance against Eileen two weeks before she was due to go on maternity leave. I raised the grievance two MONTHS before her maternity leave. Her maternity leave and the timing of it formed no part of my grievance. The timing was due to the time that she had chosen to write to my manager. Mark's view is sexist, because his criticism could not have been made if I had raised a grievance against a man.