Age-case health manager wins new payout

Linda Sturdy yesterday won a further 147,000 in compensation on top of nearly 40,000 in damages she was awarded last year after she was rejected for a position in a shake-up of breast screening services run by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. She was judged too old at the age of 56.

An employment tribunal in Leeds said yesterday the trust had tried to "defend the indefensible" and awarded Mrs Sturdy damages mainly covering salary and lost pension rights because of discrimination and victimisation on the grounds of age.

Hospital chiefs admitted they should not have sacked her in May 2008 after she refused to take a more junior role and again that they failed to follow procedures after reinstating her in September that year – and making her redundant the same day.

Mrs Sturdy, now 60, who lives near Ripon, said she felt "vindicated" at the end of what she described as a "David and Goliath" battle for justice.

She said: "It was a horrible, horrible experience that I went through. I've had to live with this for three-and-a-half years. It feels as if a burden has been lifted. They have all these policies and procedures but they didn't follow employment law when they made me redundant. My gut feeling is that they won't change their ways because they think they can get away with it."

Her husband Richard, 65, a retired businessman, said: "I'm astounded at the way they have been prepared to waste public money on lost causes.

"There's no real accountability regarding decisions which are taken and the way they affect the efficiency of the service and the people working in it.

"It's disgusting that none of the individuals responsible for this have received any penalty at all."

In the tribunal, Judge Christine Lee said Mrs Sturdy's claim for unfair dismissal and discrimination and victimisation because of age had been successful.

She said Mrs Sturdy had been first dismissed in 2008 after managers carried out a threat to sack her for refusing to take a job of lesser status.

She was later reinstated but immediately made redundant without warning in "complete breach" of statutory procedures. It was aggravated since the trust acted in a "high-handed, oppressive and insulting" fashion "totally without minimum requirements of the law".

The trust had finally made concessions but it had been trying to "defend the indefensible".

Last year, the tribunal found managers had behaved in a "high-handed, malicious, insulting and oppressive" manner in victimising Mrs Sturdy who was told in 2006 she was the preferred candidate to run breast screening services for 124,000 women in Leeds, Wakefield and Pontefract.

But when she told a senior manager she was only a few years from retirement, he replied: "I didn't realise you were so old." The post was then given to a less experienced colleague, 13 years her junior.

The trust's director of human resources Jackie Green said: "The trust has accepted that mistakes were made in the handling of this original issue and that regrettably Mrs Sturdy was as a consequence the subject of less favourable treatment and is therefore entitled to compensation on that basis.

"We have looked closely into what happened to learn lessons."