Caught on CCTV, the boss who vandalised sacked woman’s car
WHEN Suzanne Brogan found her car had been vandalised outside her home in the Christmas holidays, she assumed drunken louts were to blame.
But the sales manager looked at CCTV of the incident and was stunned to discover that the man responsible for scrawling ‘bitch’ across her passenger side windows was her former boss.
Christopher Stanton vandalised her car after an employment tribunal ruled he had unfairly sacked Mrs Brogan from the telecoms firm he had founded. He wore a disguise during the attack but Mrs Brogan recognised him from his distinctive gait.
A month after the incident, Stanton returned to her street in Kettering, Northamptonshire, and splashed the Volkswagen Golf with red paint, an incident again caught on camera.
But despite the CCTV footage it took two years and two victim’s ‘right to review’ applications before 59-year-old Stanton was eventually convicted. He appealed but dropped his bid three days before the court hearing in October.
Mrs Brogan pushed for 18 months Prosecution to convince Service the to Crown bring charges against the Leicestershire businessman.
Yesterday she said she had lost faith in the justice system, adding: ‘If you don’t fight and you’re not prepared to fight it’s almost as if the system is working against you. I’d got the CCTV, I’d got the motive, I’d got every reason for them to prosecute. I gave it to them on a plate and they resisted.’
Mrs Brogan, 49, was sacked without warning by Stanton after five years at Welcomm Communications in Leicestershire in December 2013. She was awarded £33,500 damages the following summer. Stanton first targeted her car in December 2014. The following March, police went to his home in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, to arrest him, but he was on holiday. When Stanton was eventually summonsed, the CPS dropped the charges – prompting two right to review applications under a scheme for victims that came into effect in 2013. When Mrs Brogan first discov- ered the vandalism, she blamed children as she lives in the middle of town and it was the ‘silly season’ between Christmas and New Year. She was then stunned to see Stanton on her CCTV footage.
‘When I realised that it was him, I just couldn’t believe it,’ she said. ‘It was jaw-dropping.
‘I viewed the CCTV, slowed it right down and recognised his walk, even though he was wearing a disguise. That was why the CPS didn’t push the charges, because there wasn’t enough of a distinction to his walk.’
Stanton was eventually convicted of two counts of criminal damage when he appeared before Northampton magistrates in January.
He was ordered to pay fines of £4,615 and put under a restraining order banning him from contacting his victim. He appealed but dropped the case on October 6. Yesterday he branded Mrs Brogan an ‘evil woman who is out to get me’.
He added: ‘She has just been holding a grudge against me ever since she was sacked from the company. I’ve been set up, she’s a nasty person.
‘ I wanted to appeal but I dropped it because I didn’t want the stress of going through court again. I’m retired now and I just want a quiet life.’