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A Royal Mail employee bullied over exposing fraud has won over £2 million in the company’s largest-ever settlement.
Media specialist Kam Jhuti was intimidated and harassed by her boss Mike Widmer after she raised concerns that a colleague had secured their bonus illegitimately.
The company was accused of “destroying” Ms Jhuti’s life by a judge last year and told that if it had a “shred of decency” it would pay her over £100,000 in damages following the “catastrophic” impact of her boss’ treatment of her.
She ended up being sacked and was left suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. The tribunal concluded that the postal service had been “high-handed, malicious, insulting and oppressive” in how it had conducted the case.
Now, the panel has awarded Ms Jhuti £2,365,614.13 in damages, the highest ever payout by the Royal Mail. She will only receive £250,000 of this straight away as the postal service plans to appeal the tribunal’s findings.
A 2019 Supreme Court hearing heard that Ms Jhuti started work as a £50,000 per year media specialist at the Royal Mail’s MarketReach unit based in London in September 2013.
However, the following month, whilst shadowing a colleague, she began to suspect they were not following Ofcom’s guidance and also breaching the company’s policy in relation to bonuses known as Tailor-Made Incentives (TMIs), which she said helped the colleague to hit performance targets and directly securing a bonus for herself and “in effect defrauding the company”.
‘Strong and serious’ allegations
In November, Ms Jhuti emailed Mr Widmer and reported her concerns and emailed his boss stating she needed to “provide evidence” of the accusations which he described as “quite strong and serious”.
He then had a four-hour meeting with Ms Jhuti in which he said that if the allegations were untrue it would “impact” on her job, as well stating that her understanding of the TMI policy was “questionable”.
The court heard that Ms Jhuti realised if she were to pursue the issue then her job would be put at risk.
She subsequently apologised “repeatedly” and agreed to email Mr Widmer and retract the allegations but was given a two-hour “dress down” where she was told she was falling short of the requirements of her role.
Mr Widmer then set up “intensive” weekly meetings with her and by December was “repeatedly” telling her that her progress was disappointing.
Later that month, a TMI expert in the business confirmed Ms Jhuti’s previous allegations had been correct by acknowledging that media specialists were offering TMIs “inappropriately”.
By January 2014, she was suffering from alopecia which she believed was stress-related, and in February she was placed on a six-week performance improvement plan and told if she did not comply, she would fail her trial period.
‘Holding a grudge’
She then emailed human resources expressing concern over her boss’s conduct and said: “It is clear I am being managed to be removed, all on the basis of [Mr Widmer] holding what I believe is a grudge from the day I raised an issue.
“If you want me out, all based on the initial issue I raised, then just tell me to go.”
She was granted a new line manager but was told she was not making the expected progress and on March 12, 2014, was signed off with work-related stress, anxiety and depression, and never returned to work.
After taking Royal Mail to an initial employment tribunal in 2015, Ms Jhuti’s claims of unfair dismissal “finally” succeeded after the Supreme Court ruled in her favour.
The total compensation awarded included a ‘basic award’ of £494,213.79 and a ‘past losses including pension’ award of £1,079,165.07.
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