Mayor ordered to pay £33,000 damages for sexually harassing clerk

12 April 2012

A mayor who wrecked the career of his town clerk with his sexual advances has been ordered to pay her £33,697 damages.

Sally Bing 31, was driven from her job as the most senior employee of Chard Town Council in Somerset by bullying after she threatened to report mayor Tony Prior's infatuation.

Mr Prior invited her to join him on an all expenses paid walking holiday in Andorra after becoming obsessed with Mrs Bing when her marriage broke up.

He confessed to feeling a sexual thrill when he stood close to Mrs Bing, he told her he dreamed of her when he went to sleep and when he woke up, and he ogled at her during meetings.

He offered her a £500 cheque when she turned down his holiday, he blew a kiss at her in the council offices, and invited her out to lunch.

He made a drunken phone call to her home number after swilling Rioja on holiday and later sent her an e-mail after drinking sherry, wine and whisky at his home.

Mrs Bing, won her case for sexual discrimination and victimization after the hearing in Exeter was told how the mayor turned nasty when he was rejected.

Chard Town Council, who employed her have already agreed to pay her damages of £25,000.

Tribunal chairman Mr John Hollow also awarded legal costs which have to be assessed and told Mr Prior: "You made serious aspersions on her professional integrity and impugned her character."

"We feel there is a clear case for aggravated damages."

After the case Mr Prior said: "It is an appalling miscarriage of justice. I have no idea how I can pay. Maragaret and I have been married for 25 years and the marital home belongs to her."

"I will not be standing for election again. I have had tremendous support from my many friends in Chard. I haven't a clue how I will pay this huge sum."

"My wife has supported me all the way through and will continue to do so, she has been an absolute brick."

He criticized her in an annual assessment, over-ruled her on important decisions, had stand-up rows in her office and threatened to sack her.

She was so terrified by her bullying she went off sick with stress and moved the furniture in her office to give her an escape route if he was in there.

When he was forced to resign over her allegations he put out a press release attacking her work, accusing her of going shopping while on sick leave and giving her ex-directory home phone number.

Graduate Mrs Bing, who took a £5,000 a year pay cut when she resigned from her £30,000 a year job to take up a less prestigious one at Yeovil, is to be awarded damages against Mr Prior.

She is claiming £28,000 for the distress he caused her and thousands more for loss of earnings.

She has already agreed a settlement of £25,000 from the Town Council which admitted vicarious liability for its Mayor's behaviour.

Tribunal chairman Mr John Hollow said: "It is clear when Mr Prior invited Mrs Bing to Andorra he was acting with a sexual motive."

"Although there was no overt sexual behaviour there after Mrs Bing's case is that these matters for part of the same sequence and he was seeking to revenge himself by admonishing her and warning her because she had rejected his advances."

"We are satisfied she has proved the facts from which that inference can be drawn and his conduct caused her significant emotional distress."

Mr Hollow said when Mr Prior was forced to resign as Mayor his press release aggravated the situation by revealing what he had done, giving out Mrs Bing's home number and accusing her of going shopping while off sick.

He said: "The issue we have to decide is whether he did this deliberately to revenge himself. He denied it but we do not believe him."

"We feel this was a deliberate act on his part by an experienced local councillor and we find it served to deliberately aggravate and already difficult and distressing situation."

Retired social worker Mr Prior, who sat as an independent councillor, now faces financial ruin and the end of a 30 year career in local government.

At one time he was a prominent Liberal Democrat on Paddy Ashdown's Yeovil constituency and he was the Lib Dem leader of South Somerset District Council for seven years.

He has already been forced to resign and lost his seats on the Chard Town Council and South Somerset District council after being banned from office by the Standards Board of England.

The council tax payers of Chard, which has a population of just 12,000, will have to pick up the bill for the town council's damages.

The council's entire annual budget is only £500,000.

During the hearing Mrs Bing told of her torment working with Mr Prior after she learned he had sexual feelings towards her.

She said: "I was most upset by his offer and the implied suggestion of a sexual relationship and this resulted in me being signed off work with stress."

"My doctor explained I was experiencing a sort of grief for the situation I had before, a relationship of respect and support."

"This had been destroyed by a completely unethical, improper, and totally unwelcome proposition in which Tony Prior made it absolutely clear he wanted a sexual relationship."

"I was distraught at having to return to work in a situation I considered compromised. I felt completely isolated. I felt very uneasy that he had sexual thoughts about me."

"I believe as a result of my rejection of his offer of a holiday with him his attitude towards me changed."

"His behaviour forced me to make a complaint to the Standards Board. I felt I could not cope with any more inappropriate behaviour."

"His behaviour developed from sexual harassment to bullying in a continuous and sinister manner."

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