Lord Winston ‘sacked whistleblower’

IVF pioneer Lord Winston sacked the boss of his charity after she ‘blew the whistle’ over a funding issue that could have breached the law, a tribunal heard.

Dyan Sterling is suing the 80-year-old for unfair dismissal from her role as chief executive officer of the Genesis Research Trust, the UK’s largest reproductive research organisation.

The dispute arose from a donation worth more than £2million made to the charity, at Imperial College London, in April.

The money, from the Angela Pattman Scholarship Fund, was intended for scholarships for undergraduate medical students. But Lord Winston’s charity only funded postgraduate research grants.

The tribunal heard trustees feared staff at Imperial could sue for the gift and considered transferring the funding to the college – which Mrs Sterling said was possibly in breach of charity law.

She was invited to a meeting to discuss her redundancy in July, hours after she sent a letter recommending the issue was referred to The Charity Commission, and was dismissed last month. In his witness statement, Lord Winston, pictured, said the charity had been losing money and Mrs Sterling had failed to rectify this. In a preliminary hearing, the tribunal concluded it was likely she was ‘singled out’ but evidence also suggests there was a ‘genuine’ financial cause for her redundancy. There will be a final ruling at an upcoming hearing.