The former chairman of Healthcare Locums, Alan Walker, has denied “sexual impropriety” with dismissed chief executive Kate Bleasdale amid allegations of accounting irregularities at the company.
Bleasdale, who is representing herself at the London employment tribunal, is suing Walker – and HCL’s board members – for sexual discrimination and unfair dismissal.
The medical staffing firm sacked her in January 2011 after “accounting irregularities” came to light. Bleasdale, who left nursing to build up a multi-million pound business, cross-examined Walker on Wednesday 25 April, in the third week of her £12 million legal action against HCL and a number of former colleagues.
She described how her former chairman allegedly became increasingly hostile towards her after, she claimed, he behaved inappropriately at a meeting in a London bar. Bleasdale accused Walker of touching her leg once and her right breast twice during the August 2010 meeting.
But Walker attested that the claim was "completely untrue". According to The Telegraph, he said: "I am extremely unhappy and disappointed at the turn of events. I am distressed for my wife and family that I have been dragged through the press for sexual impropriety where none exists. I feel utterly betrayed by everything that has happened."
Bleasdale was suspended and dismissed from the company in March 2011, after serious discrepancies with the firm’s accounts threatened its reputation.
The tribunal had heard earlier in the week from non-executive director David Henderson, who upheld her dismissal/ He believed that she should have considered resigning after the discovery of serious problems with the accounts.
But Bleasdale defended her actions following a meeting in December 2010, at which she said accountants had described the accounts as “as clear as mud”.
Alleged cover-up
According to the Recruiter, she told the tribunal: “The action I took was to ask the accountants to go away and investigate, to get rid of the mud, so we could see what was happening to the accounts.”
Henderson said that he himself had seen clear evidence of the seriousness of the situation facing the company, citing “a series of emails that all pointed to a black hole” in the accounts.
Last week at the tribunal, Bleasdale claimed HCL’s former finance director Diane Jarvis had told the board in a March 2010 meeting that she had “lost her accounting ethics”.
However, former deputy chairman Alastair Liddell said: “I don’t remember her saying that, and I would have remembered it.” Liddell added that he had not heard Jarvis say that she had instructed Barry Pactor, then managing director of HCL’s international division, to doctor an email relating to three placements in the Middle East.
Following the discovery of the email by HCL’s auditors, BDO, Walker asked Jarvis to carry out an investigation.
Liddell claimed that, rather than send a team from BDO to investigate the email, the board decided to change its accounting policy so that revenue from permanent placements was only recognised in the accounts when candidates started work.
Bleasdale attested that the change in accounting policy amounted to a cover-up. The tribunal continues.
In a previous case, she sued directors from her first company, specialist nursing recruitment agency, Match Group for sexual discrimination claiming that she was sacked for no good reason. The company settled out of court for £2.2 million in 2002.
