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Cherie's stepmother accused of tantrums
Cherie Blair's stepmother was high-handed with colleagues, threw "tantrums" and name-dropped her famous relatives, an employment tribunal heard yesterday.
Steph Booth, accompanied at the hearing by Tony Booth, the father of the former prime minister's wife, was "rude and condescending" and would "scream" at other staff at the children's charity where she was a teacher, the tribunal was told.
Mrs Booth, who has been selected to stand as a Labour candidate for the Calder Valley constituency in West Yorkshire in the next General Election, was also accused of scheming to discredit a local Labour Party rival.
Gareth Binding, the chief executive of the organisation, Cool UK, where Mrs Booth worked, said he asked her about Criminal Records Bureau checks after she began working for him in April 2008.
"She said because of who she was related to she had received clearance at the highest level and scoffed at the idea," Mr Binding said.
Mrs Booth, from Todmorden, West Yorkshire, claims she was dismissed for whistle-blowing because the organisation was "chaotic" and failing children.
Mrs Booth was made redundant from her 26,000-a-year job in March last year.
The charity offers a "radical alternative" to traditional education to help teenagers excluded from school by teaching them vocational subjects.
Mr Binding said Mrs Booth was employed after saying she was extremely well connected in political circles.
But after she started at Cool UK, which has bases in Manchester and Burnley, complaints from other workers started straight away, Mr Binding said. "I heard about the tantrums."
He told the tribunal in Manchester one member of staff had told him he had been "coerced" by Mrs Booth into writing derogatory remarks about a local Labour Party rival on a website.
The hearing continues today.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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