DESTROYED IN COURT
0486 TRIBUNAL - FINAL BREAKDOWN OF MY HEALTH
[Another part of my submission to the Tribunal]
The result of the final bullying was the immediate breakdown of my health, as evidenced by my own doctor’s report to the OU and subsequent emails giving notice of illness. It was also followed by a referral to the OU doctor and his subsequent report confirmed my own GP’s diagnosis of an acute stress disorder and associated anxiety and depression; in the more popular idiom, a nervous breakdown. Crucially, he also stated that this was solely associated with recent issues in the workplace. In this context, it has to be remembered that the Dean had instituted the previous (2000) health review on the basis that he questioned my mental state and had recently included a key reference to this in his pivotal memo to OU Personnel.
84. Most important, for the first time, Dr. Sorrell made a plea that OUBS management resolve the issues that had caused the breakdown. This plea was repeated by him a number of times over the coming months, but was never satisfactorily addressed by management. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, it was never addressed at all and certainly no significant support was provided to me by my management. The OU has specific guidance on handling such sickness, though in practice significant parts of this were blatantly ignored by everyone except Dr Sorrell. Indeed, rather than assisting me to overcome my health problems, it seemed at times that OUBS management was knowingly playing on these disabilities - as a deliberate tactic to ‘shut me up’ (as had been threatened in Roland Kaye’s email). Aided by Katie Stocks, he - in particular - put increasing amounts of pressure on me in order to force me into an unfavourable settlement of the dispute; and indeed to force me out of the OU. Attempting to mitigate my condition I undertook a course of cognitive therapy with a psychiatrist at my local hospital, but the continuing uncertainty of my position in the OU undermined this.
OU Counsel, in his summing up, attempted to prove that I was exaggerating the problems my condition had caused; since I had undertaken a “hell of a lot of work” on my PhD during this time. However, as I was able to point out, the PhD was awarded – on the basis of publication – for work done five years earlier. My only actual work during the period in question was some final editing of the already written synthesis.
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