£100,000 payout ‘after bullying boss made her staff cry’
A SENIOR executive has won almost £100,000 after she complained that a ‘bullying’ female boss of a women-friendly dating app reduced colleagues to tears.
Laura Cameron-Peck, 62, was awarded compensation after an employment tribunal heard that bosses had ignored her complaints about ‘downright rude’ rhonda Alexander, 58.
Ms Alexander was the chief executive of Fluttr, a British app that, when it launched two years ago, boasted that its AI technology would ‘rid the world of Tinder Swindlers and create a safe space free from the fake profiles used to defraud, catfish and abuse online daters’. The Cambridge universityeducated new Yorker, now based in London, calls herself a ‘fierce champion for female leaders’.
However, the Manchester tribunal heard that behind the scenes her ‘passive aggressive’ behaviour to staff had led to complaints.
Ms Cameron-Peck – who made £120,000 a year as head of Wndr, a sister start-up to Fluttr – reported Ms Alexander to bosses before the platform’s launch, accusing her of humiliating colleagues. But even though one tearful worker had resigned, Graham Pullan, founder of the subsidiaries’ parent firm Ethical Social Group, ignored Ms Cameron-Peck’s concerns and began ‘belittling’ her in public, the tribunal heard.
Ms Cameron-Peck, from Surrey, ‘ started to feel scared of going to work’, employment judge Hilary Slater was told. In October 2021, Ms CameronPeck was suspended and nine days later, she resigned. The
‘Belittling her in public’
tribunal concluded Mr Pullan targeted her after she became an ‘irritant in his side’ as the matters she raised were ‘threatening his way of carrying on business’.
She sued ESG, which ceased trading in 2022, Mr Pullan and two other company directors for constructive dismissal and breach of contract. Thirteen claims were upheld and she won £97,361 in compensation.