Ex-hospital chief suffers £1m ‘tyrant’ case defeat

Sandra King, 53, said she was bullied and harassed into mental illness by Dr Abdul Al Muhairi, former acting chief executive officer at London’s Cromwell Hospital.

At London’s High Court in January, her counsel, Simon Livingstone, told Deputy Judge John Leighton Williams QC that between April 2003 and August 2006, Dr Al Muhairi, 47, who left the Cromwell in 2008, engaged in aggressive and unreasonable conduct.

In her witness statement, Mrs King, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, said: “I believe he deliberately set out to destroy me.”

Counsel said she had developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and been unfit to work since 2006, when she had to leave her post of executive manager at the hospital, where she had been for 23 years.

He described her as a “consummate professional”, an ambitious and able woman, who had excelled in the ever-more demanding roles with which she was presented.

It was only a matter of time before the married mother-of-two, who had always had sound mental health, would have risen higher.

Medical Services International Ltd, which conceded it was liable for the acts of Dr Al Muhairi in the course of his employment, denied the allegations about his behaviour and said family and other health problems had caused Mrs King’s symptoms.

In his ruling, the judge said he accepted Mrs King as a truthful and reliable witness but added: “She has come to believe that Dr Al Muhairi set out to destroy her career and as a result cannot see what happened in an objective balanced way.”

He said she had described Dr Al Muhairi, who did not give evidence, as a tyrant, dictator, megalomaniac and psychopath. The judge said two incidents were undermining, one approached harassment and a third was bullying. He was satisfied other causes were responsible for Mrs King’s breakdown.