Pathologist received threatening text the day after he resigned
Jaber went to gardaí after phone message from a former colleague
DR KHALID JABER, the former deputy State pathologist who dramatically resigned last month, received threatening text messages from an ex-colleague, resulting in a Garda intervention, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
The MoS has also learned that three counts of bullying in the workplace made against Dr Jaber were upheld last January, indicating the troubled relationships Dr Jaber, 55, had within the service.
This newspaper previously revealed that Dr Jaber was in dispute with pathology staff in three mortuaries in Dublin, Cork and Navan who refused to work with him.
It has now emerged that certain staff at Limerick University Hospital also refused to work with Dr Jaber since October this year.
Speaking to the MoS at his home in north Co. Dublin this weekend, Dr Jaber, who is now unemployed, confirmed receipt of threatening text messages.
He said: ‘Yes, they happened. The last one was sent at 1.02 am on Saturday morning, Novem- ber 30, the day after I resigned. I reported it to gardaí.
‘The guards went straight around [to the sender’s home] because they took it seriously too. The day after, they asked me whether I wanted to press charges but I didn’t. I just want my number removed from this person’s phone. They have no need to contact me ever again. I had already made a complaint in May 2012 about a text the same individual sent me.’
When contacted this week, the sender of the text message, who is not a pathologist but works alongside them, declined to comment. A Garda source said that a previous text message had also been investigated.
Dr Jaber’s resignation came after it emerged that he and State pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy had each written to the DPP and the Department of Justice to raise concerns about each other’s professional competency.
In a letter to the Royal College of Pathologists earlier this year, and another more recent one to the DPP, Dr Jaber questioned Prof. Cassidy’s qualifications.
He described her as ‘only a general pathologist with interest in forensic pathology, and not a professional who holds specific credible certification in the sub-speciality of forensic pathology’. Such certification is not available in Ireland.
The Department of Justice has insisted that six unfinished murder cases that Dr Jaber had been working on will not be affected by his departure.
However, one murder trial has already been disrupted after an intervention last month by the Prof. Cassidy, who questioned the evidence of her deputy in a letter to the DPP which was brought to the court’s attention.
This week Dr Jaber said of his former boss: ‘I still respect Marie, I respect her professionally. It wasn’t personal.’
Meanwhile, the MoS has seen correspondence verifying that three counts of bullying and ‘an infringement of the right to dignity in the workplace’ were upheld against Dr Jaber in January of this year.
Dr Jaber played down rumours
‘I still respect Marie. It wasn’t personal’
that he was about to accept a new post in the Middle East. ‘Is that what they’re saying? I wouldn’t mind if someone gave me a job like that. No, I am actually desperately looking for work.’
Earlier this year, he applied for a job in the US city of El Paso, Texas. He was selected as the chief medical examiner in the city on the Mexican border.
But the offer of the job, which pays a salary in the region of $250,000, was withdrawn in June.