Hammersmith and Fulham Council boss speaks out over £4.6m pay-out

A former council boss who won a £4.6m pay-out after developing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) while helping Grenfell victims has spoken about the distress she felt since being sacked.

Rachael Wright-Turner, 52, said her life had been ruined after she was dismissed by Hammersmith and Fulham Council in 2018 while on sick leave.

The pay-out was awarded for disability discrimination and harassment.

The council apologised but said it would appeal the "excessive" claim.

The amount is believed to be one of the largest granted against a public body.

Ms Wright-Turner was formerly a director of public service reform with Hammersmith and Fulham Council. She had joined from Kensington and Chelsea where she was helping to support those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, and from which she developed PTSD.

"The horror of Grenfell is not my story - that belongs to the 72 who lost their lives, their families and the survivors. I am grateful to have been able to assist them as much as I could, and they are always in my thoughts," she said.

Following the conclusion of the hearing at London Central Employment Tribunal, she said the "horrible" six-year legal battle had caused her "world to collapse" and "devastated" her mental health.

She said her marriage had broken down, her children were forced to leave their school and she was trying to stop her house from being repossessed.

She added that she was also unable to receive treatment for her PTSD while the hearing was ongoing and had lost a lot of weight.

Of the £4.6m pay-out, she said £2m would go back to the taxpayer via HM Revenue and Customs and that the remainder had been awarded as her "mental and physical health has been so devastated by my treatment, and complications of severe complex PTSD".

"It is so humiliating to phone-up friends and beg them for money for legal costs. I borrowed £450,000 from my mother meaning she had to remortgage her house.

"I will never be able to return to my former career. These damages include past earnings, and future losses to retirement age," she said.

The employment tribunal's ruling found senior officers in the Labour-run authority had lied in evidence and none of the council's claims on her integrity or competence were upheld.

Records show the court psychologist said her mental health would not have deteriorated to the same extent without the case, the dismissal, and treatment by two people at the council.

It was also stated that Ms Wright-Turner had not received any apology from the council for the discrimination and harassment, nor for their dishonest conduct in the course of her employment.

The tribunal was told that the council had attributed her dismissal to incompetence and excess alcohol consumption.

"If I'd known at the start how horrendous it was going to be, how vicious they were going to be, I wouldn't have gone through with it," Ms Wright-Turner said.

"I didn't want to see my world collapse and my name ruined, you can't recover from that slander when a whole organisation is saying that it is the truth."

She added: "It's unforgiveable and a deliberate conspiracy - the people involved are still operating in local government without consequence or accountability."

In a statement, Hammersmith and Fulham Council said: "We are very sorry for the ordeal suffered by Ms Wright-Turner, who joined Hammersmith and Fulham Council in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy in 2017.

"However, we have always considered Ms Wright-Turner's claim for compensation to be vastly excessive, disputed and highly unprecedented.

"While we are grateful to the tribunal panel for dismissing many of the exceptional claims that her lawyers have made, we still believe this award is excessive and will be looking to appeal."

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