SACKED Le Rondin School head teacher Jane Stephens told yesterday how former colleagues had made a concerted effort to remove her from the post. On the 16th day of an employment tribunal, at which Mrs Stephens is claiming she was unfairly dismissed by the Education Department, Crown Advocate Richard McMahon asked her whether the problem was restricted to management of the department.

‘I think there were people other than the senior management team who were contributing to this,’ she said.

Collaborative work to suggest her professional opinion was not secure appeared to have started in June or July 2004 and she had found that unusual.

‘There seemed to be increasing scrutiny and reporting of my activities between a wide number of people,’ she said.

Through informal discussions, she learned that minor and inconsequential details about her activities were known to others who had not been involved.

Advocate McMahon spent much of the morning cross-examining Mrs Stephens on her relationship with department officers, including director Derek Neale.

Mrs Stephens said she had had greater contact with Mr Neale in the year before Le Rondin opened.

‘The increased contact confirmed the respect I had for him as my line manager and it enabled me to speak to him in a more informal way,’ she said. ‘Sometimes, we would talk about poetry.’

The relationship changed after the pair had a meeting on 27 September 2005, at which the director allegedly told Mrs Stephens she was sacked.

Advocate McMahon asked if she had lost her respect for Mr Neale.

‘I don’t think I ever lost my respect for him, but I was hurt,’ she said.

Advocate McMahon asked Mrs Stephens at what point she had realised that working in education was no longer a realistic option.

‘I never decided that,’ she said.

Mrs Stephens admitted that on one occasion she had told an Education officer that she ‘Mrs Stephens’ considered the department to be a service provider but it appeared that the officer did not.

She agreed it had been an inappropriate way to speak to a department officer, but said she had been seeking early redress to a problem and it was a question of provoking action rather than causing a fuss.

‘Do you make a habit of seeking to prompt action by dealing with officers of the department in this way?’ said Advocate McMahon.

Mrs Stephens said she did not. She denied that on another occasion she had told another officer, Shona Isbister, ‘This is how it works – you give it to me and we will get along fine’.

Mrs Stephens said she had received no support when she indicated she was uncomfortable with the behaviour of colleagues, that due process for her dismissal had not been followed and that she had not been given the chance to rebut things that had been said about her.

Advocate McMahon asked Mrs Stephens whom she blamed for her dismissal.

‘In retrospect, I think it was a shared responsibility among a number of people,’ she said. ‘I have no way of estimating to what degree any one might be to blame, but I believe the ultimate blame must rest with Mr Neale as head of the senior management team.’

The tribunal, at the Old Government House Hotel, continues today at 9am.

* Deputy Dan Le Cheminant has asked us to clarify that he did not object to Mr Neale being present or making comments while Mrs Stephens was present during the meeting at which she was sacked.

He considered it wrong that Mr Neale had made comments about Mrs Stephens in the second part of the meeting, after she had left.