'Sexist bastard left me a wreck'

A City businesswoman told today how she was driven to the brink of a nervous breakdown by the "bullying" tactics of a "sexist bastard" chairman.

Millionairess Kate Bleasdale, 41, described how she was reduced to a "shaking wreck" by Sir Tim Chessells, chairman of the medical staff agency she founded and sold on.

Sir Tim, a chairman of the influential Hermes pension fund and former chairman of the Legal Aid Board, took over at Sinclair Montrose Healthcare after the company was bought out when it hit problems and quit the stock market in 1999.

Mother-of-four Mrs Bleasdale stayed on as day-to-day boss but the relationship between the pair was bitter.

She told a Croydon employment tribunal, where she is claiming unfair dismissal and sex discrimination, that Sir Tim had "a real problem working with a female chief executive. He was bullish, aggressive and very hostile."

Events came to a head on 1 November, 2000, when she was called to a meeting with Sir Tim to discuss the refloating of the company, now called the Match Group.

A week earlier the pair had allegedly agreed she would preside over the flotation. But at the meeting Sir Tim suddenly announced she no longer had his backing. She told the tribunal: "He said, 'I'm not willing to float a company with you as chief executive'. Sir Tim had made a complete U-turn in the space of one week. He completely destroyed any faith in our relationship."

Another director, Nick Martin, then blamed Mrs Bleasdale for leaking news of the Wandsworth-based firm's £150million flotation to the Evening Standard. Mrs Bleasdale told the tribunal: "I said this had been agreed with the PR department." But when she said this she was laughed at by the directors.

She told the hearing: "The three directors, Sir Tim, Nick Martin and Rob Moores, had all treated me with a mixture of ridicule and contempt for over 18 months. I asked to leave the room as I was so close to tears. I felt like I was in a surreal world. I could not believe they were telling such lies. I could not believe the ferocity of their attack."

She ran out of the meeting and telephoned the company's operations manager, Fergal O'Brien, to tell him of the confrontation. She told the hearing he replied: "Don't worry Kate, they're just a bunch of sexist bastards who cannot stand working with you."

Following the meeting she said she suffered severe panic attacks and a loss of libido. Her GP warned her she was close to a breakdown, prescribed antidepressants and advised a six-month break from work. She went on: "It was almost as if they were jealous of my success. I felt like a victim. I felt like I had been mugged. I could not believe their obvious enjoyment of the attacks, the feelings of power the meeting had obviously given them."

Earlier, the tribunal was told how Mr Martin regularly sent Mrs Bleasdale - a former Entrepreneur of the Year - "sexist, racist and sexual" emails, and how Mr Moores and Sir Tim had on one occasion stared at her breasts in a "blatant and degrading" way.

After the November 2000 meeting she carried on with her job as usual, she said. But the treatment she received that day was "always in the back of my mind".

The hearing continues.