Canadian worker says harassment by male colleagues drove her to brink
A SCOTTISH Government worker told yesterday how she wanted to kill herself because of the harassment she was subjected to.
Senior fisheries officer DeeAnn Fitzpatrick claimed she had contacted euthanasia clinic Dignitas in Switzerland because she had “had enough”.
Last month, the record reported DeeAnn’s bullying allegations, including a shocking photograph which showed her bound and gagged on a chair.
She claimed the picture was taken in the Scrabster office of government agency Marine Scotland.
DeeAnn, 49, has taken them to an employment tribunal in Aberdeen alleging sexual bullying from male colleagues.
The canadian told how she was sent sick Valentine’s and birthday cards which left her humiliated, intimidated and By charliE Gall c.gall@dailyrecord.co.uk terrified. The first card, dated February 12, 2015, had a message which read: “it isnae nice to tease or mock but we call you the canadian Jock.
“rise to give us a twirl, ye isnae a girl but we know you hae twa baws and a **** .”
DeeAnn said she reported the card to her Hr department in edinburgh and spoke to her trade union but nothing was done.
She said: “i understood the Hr team did not find the card was work-related and took a decision not to do anything about it.”
A year later, another Valentine was sent to her home, which included the note: “To one sexy mama! xxx.”
DeeAnn said: “i felt intimidated. i did know who sent it but i thought it was a follow-up from the card the year before.” She also began receiving birthday cards – one on February 27 last year had a cartoon troll of an elderly woman.
At the time, DeeAnn was signed off sick and her father was dying.
The card said “Go get your groove on” and inside a message read: “To an old troll, we miss you not.”
She told the hearing: “i think it was from someone at work because i wasn’t at work.”
She named three male colleagues and said she felt “terrified”, adding: “it was letting me know they could still get to me and i felt it was never going to stop.”
DeeAnn said the cards stopped after she raised a complaint with the tribunal office in June last year.
She said that she remains off work despite being cleared to go back by her doctor.
She said: “Hr insisted i stay at home for the ‘health and well-being of others and me’ but i’m not suspended.”
She said she’d become a recluse, suffering a loss of self esteem and cutting herself off from other people.
She also contemplated taking her own life.
DeeAnn described the culture at the office as “a bunch of men working together who gossiped and back-stabbed a lot – that seemed to be the culture.”
Under cross-examination, DeeAnn rejected the suggestion disgruntled fishermen or “a list of people” in the community who disliked her could have sent the cards.
She said: “Someone with a sick mind kept sending them to me to intimidate and frighten me because i am a woman working in Marine Scotland – that’s why i got them.”
The hearing in Aberdeen is expected to run for two days.