Aids charity boss ‘forced out’ after grope complaint
THE chief executive of one of Britain’s biggest Aids charities was forced out when she complained that the vicechairman of trustees drunkenly groped the medical director, a tribunal heard.
Dr Rosemary Gillespie claims she was subjected to a “nasty, vindictive and sustained campaign of bullying” and claimed trustees at the Terrence Higgins Trust ignored alleged sexual misconduct and “potentially criminal behaviour” at the charity. Dr Gillespie, of Vauxhall, south London, who was brought in to carry out a reorganisation of the trust, claims she was forced out of the job after 15 months in July last year after she began investigating the behaviour of trustees. She said she was appointed chief executive in April 2014 “with a clear mandate from the trustees to lead what was widely seen to be much needed changes at the charity”.
She alleged that the vice-chairman of trustees groped and tried to kiss the male medical director of the charity after getting drunk at a Christie’s fundraising auction.
Dr Gillespie is seeking damages from her former employer in the form compensation for lost wages.
She claims she was dismissed after raising several “legitimate public interest concerns” to the trustees.
She told the hearing: “I raised genuine and serious public interest concerns with trustees that I reasonably believed highlighted dangers to the health and safety of myself and colleagues of the culture of bullying and resistance to change.
“Rather than support me and deal with the issues in a proper manner as they should have done, trustees dismissed me.
“I believe I have been dismissed because I raised these protected disclosures.
“Having been brought in as a change agent to fix the serious problems at THT, including those identified by the listening exercise, starting on my second day I became the subject of a nasty, vindictive and sustained campaign of bullying, harassment and undermining of my leadership, led by two senior managers resistant to the scrutiny and changes the trustees asked me to make.
“The stated aim of his campaign was to achieve my removal from office and undermine senior colleagues.”
Dr Gillespie told trustees the bullying was causing “work-related stress” and affecting her health through “sleeplessness, forgetfulness, anxiety and panic attacks”.
The hearing continues.